Immigrant workers are fighting back amid a new wave of vicious attacks by the state, targeting both immigrant workers and the broader working class in the United States and internationally. These attacks have taken the form of mass arrests and detentions carried out by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), a federal agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security tasked with enforcing immigration law.

Such agencies and their operations are justified in the name of “national security,” which in reality means protecting the ruling class’s ability to accumulate profit while disciplining and controlling the working class. Historically and today, the capitalist class has used immigration policing and law to meet its labor needs and as a weapon to enforce hyper-exploitation by forcing undocumented immigrants, one of the most oppressed sections of the working class, to live and work in constant fear of deportation and the loss of their livelihoods.

In the face of these attacks, immigrant workers are organizing and fighting back.

The Dairy Workers’ Strike in Wisconsin

On August 12, forty-three workers at W&W Dairy in Monroe, Wisconsin, went on strike in response to new anti-immigrant policies introduced after the company was acquired by the Kansas-based Dairy Farmers of America (DFA). The strikers, nearly all Latino immigrants, demanded severance pay and the payout of accumulated paid time off after being ordered to verify their immigration status through E-Verify, a federal system run by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. E-Verify allows employers to check whether workers are authorized to work in the U.S. by comparing information from their I-9 forms against government records.

W&W Dairy gave its entire workforce until August 30 to provide proof of legal status through E-Verify. Nearly half of the roughly 100 employees quit immediately, but 43 long-serving workers refused, instead demanding three weeks of severance for every year worked. Management rejected their demand and in a move of intimidation threatened to call ICE if they continued their strike. A clear use of the intended purpose of immigration enforcement and the State to enforce higher rates of exploitation for the bosses through the use of fear and threats of deportation and detention.

These workers form a tight-knit, community-based workforce, informally organized outside the restrictive labor laws and state-controlled union frameworks imposed on workers.

The implementation of the E-Verify system in this context represents yet another attack of the boss. It is a means of purging undocumented workers and blackmailing the remaining workforce into submission. It is not about replacing undocumented workers with U.S.-born citizens but about cycling in new waves of immigrant labor, each group more deeply exploited and disciplined than the last.

The very existence of “undocumented” workers is no accident; it is a condition deliberately produced by the bourgeois state. By granting and withdrawing legal status at will, the state creates a precarious labor pool that can be easily exploited. For instance, the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians, Salvadorans, and others in 2017 and the shifting rules around TPS and work permits for Venezuelans and Haitians in recent years show how state decisions manufacture illegality and keep immigrant labor vulnerable.

Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) controls close to one-third of the U.S. milk supply, generating about $20 billion in annual revenue and ranking among the world’s largest dairy corporations. DFA employs over 19,000 people and runs more than 380 facilities across the country, processing milk into cheese, butter, powdered milk, ice cream, and other products. While based in the U.S., DFA operates globally through exports and partnerships, giving it significant influence over both domestic and international dairy markets. Many DFA workers are unionized, including under the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

DFA has refused to meet their severance demands or retain the workers through the ownership transition. Many have been forced to seek new work while caring for their families and facing the violence of the capitalist immigration system.

The Mauser Strike in Chicago

Similar to the dairy workers, immigrant workers organized with the Teamsters in Chicago are also fighting back, through the withholding of their labor, the very lifeblood of the system that keeps anti-social, decaying capitalism afloat.

Since June 9, 2025, more than 100 workers at Mauser Packaging Solutions in Little Village, Chicago, have been on an open-ended strike. The workers, organized under Teamsters Local 705, are demanding workplace safety protections, higher wages, and written guarantees that ICE agents will not be allowed on company property without a signed judicial warrant. They are also demanding advance notice of any I-9 audits; document checks that often lead to the firing or detention of immigrant workers.

The Little Village plant, located in Chicago’s predominantly Latino, Spanish-speaking neighborhood, reconditions used steel drums and industrial containers for resale and reuse. The work is dangerous, involving toxic chemicals and extreme heat. Many workers are Latino immigrants who have endured years of exploitation and intimidation from management. As one worker put it, they are treated by the company “like pack animals.”

Mauser Packaging Solutions, based in Oak Brook, Illinois, is a global corporation employing over 11,000 workers. Formed in 2018 through the consolidation of four major packaging companies, it produces metal and plastic containers used in industries worldwide. Mauser has a long record of anti-worker practices, including using the threat of immigration enforcement in past disputes such as in Seattle to undermine strikes and weaken union power.

In Chicago, the strike has drawn “support” and appearances from Mayor Brandon Johnson, Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Johnson told the workers, “This strike is leading the way to ensure that this country knows that workers run this country.” These politicians, like others in the Democratic Party, ultimately serve the same capitalist system that criminalizes and exploits immigrant workers. While they speak of “worker power” and “solidarity,” they collaborate with Republicans and the ruling class to preserve the capitalist order; a system that keeps workers exploited, disciplined, and ready to be sent to war when the next imperialist conflict demands it.

As the Mauser strike continues, arrests of immigrant workers have taken place across Chicago, including in warehouses and food production plants. It is no coincidence that Mauser refuses to include ICE protections in the contract given that employers rely on the fear generated by state repression to maintain control over immigrant labor.

The federal government has escalated workplace raids and mass detentions, targeting both undocumented and legally present immigrants. These raids have become more violent, including the shooting and killing of an unarmed undocumented person by an ICE agent in Franklin Park, Illinois, in September 2025. Immigration enforcement has become more aggressive nationwide, with coordinated operations in large immigrant centers such as Chicago and Los Angeles.

This escalation follows the passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill” by the current administration, which drastically increased funding for ICE and the military. Thus expanding the state’s capacity to detain, repress, and terrorize immigrants and working-class broadly.

The unity of the Mauser workers has been extraordinary. Not a single worker has crossed the picket line, and the vote to reject the company’s most recent offer was 100 percent unanimous. Workers have maintained their picket in a fenced and razor-wired lot near the plant to protect themselves from police and ICE attacks. Despite management threats to shut the facility, the workers remain strong.

Now entering its fourth month, the strike continues. Both sides remain entrenched, with the company escalating its threats and announcing “tentative” plans to close the plant in late November 2025.

Yet their courage stands as an example for the entire working class, showing that only through struggle, unity, and strike action can workers defend themselves against exploitation, repression, and the violence of the capitalist state.