This statement is by the United Left Platform (ULP). This is an initiative of a group of revolutionary and independent socialist organizations to actively seek opportunities for joint work, given the unprecedented authoritarian assaults facing the left, oppressed communities, and the working class as a whole in the U.S. and internationally. It is united by a commitment to political independence, a strategic focus on social struggle and mass action, and democratic organizing in all efforts. The organizations of the ULP are International Marxist Humanist Organization, Socialist Horizon, Solidarity, Tempest Collective and Workers Voice.
The United Left Platform expresses its absolute solidarity with the heroic resistance of people in Minnesota to the U.S. state’s war against its citizens and non-citizens alike. We call on people everywhere to join in the resistance wherever they are and however they can.
In the Twin Cities, an ICE agent murdered Renee Good for protesting ICE deportations. Another ICE agent shot a Venezuelan immigrant in the leg while trying to arrest him. Since last year, 36 people have died at the hands of ICE, including four since January 1st.
Faith groups, unions, and community organizations have all organized against the ICE occupation. They have called for workers to stay home from work, students to miss school, and consumers to stay out of stores this Friday, January 23rd, to protest the ICE attacks on the city. The ULP supports this call to action.
The recent back to back events in Venezuela and Minneapolis show us that the Trump regime is committed to fighting one imperial war abroad and one domestic war at home.
Before beginning its assault on Minneapolis, the United States illegally invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its President, Nicolas Maduuro. It killed at least 80 people during the invasion. Also since the start of this year, the Trump administration has requested a 1.5 trillion dollar military budget, making it far and away the largest amount of money spent on killing in human history. Last year, Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” increased the budget for ICE more than four times from 8 billion to 170 billion over four years.
The war abroad and at the war at home are signs of U.S. capitalism in crisis. Unable to restore profits or its hegemony in a multipolar world, a declining U.S. empire has resorted to what United States Homeland Security Advisor Steven Miller describes as “strength…force..and power.” State violence against the people of Venezuela, militarized takeovers of oil and resource extraction, and occupying ICE armies murdering U.S. citizens for protest against an unpopular and failing capitalist state are two sides of the same coin. Neither the traditional “rules-based” order of international law nor bourgeois democracy are any longer convenient for the U.S. ruling class. The question for the Trump regime is not “guns or butter.” The question is how many guns and how many soldiers needed to fire them.
This two-sided war is also an attempt to eliminate any and all opposition to the current regime. Destroying civil rights for immigrants and protesters is a step towards destroying them for all of us. In Trump’s first year as President, the percentage of arrests for people with no criminal record has increased 2,450 times: https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/press-release/report-trump-immigration-detention-2026/ J.D. Vance declared “full immunity” for the murderer of Renee Good even before an investigation began. The state now reserves the right to define all forms of civil disobedience to ICE as “domestic terrorism.”
The United Left Platform believes that the battle against US imperialism and the battle against ICE must become one battle. To prepare to reconquer Latin America, the MAGA forces believe they must crush basic civil and human rights for working people, both immigrant and native-born, here at home. We will be stronger if we unite all those in the world subject to US state terror into an unstoppable force.
This is especially true as the Democratic Party refuses to become an opposing force to the regime’s authoritarian aspirations.. Now more than ever we need an independent working-class movement that be a brake on Trumpian barbarism.
On Tuesday, January 27th at 8 p.m. EST/7 p.m. CST/5 p.m. PST the United Left Platform will host a national virtual meeting “U.S. Out of Venezuela!/ICE Out of Our Communities” with speakers from Venezuela and the United Left Platform.