These immigrant workers were active in spreading the word about Calero’s case in the plant immediately after his arrest by immigration agents last December. Several circulated protest petitions among co-workers and raised money during the six-month fight to stop the government from deporting Calero. Together with other Detroit supporters of the Róger Calero Defense Committee (RCDC), they helped organize a public meeting in Detroit for Calero in March.

Calero was arrested Dec. 3, 2002, at the Houston Intercontinental Airport while returning home from reporting assignments in Cuba and Mexico. Immigration authorities threw him in jail and the government began proceedings to deport him to his native Nicaragua, based on a minor plea-bargain conviction 15 years earlier, when he was in high school, for selling an ounce of marijuana to an undercover cop.

After dozens of protest letters poured into the Houston immigration office, Calero was freed in mid December. He then began a nationwide speaking tour, through which he won widespread publicity and backing for his anti-deportation fight from trade unionists, immigrant rights fighters, and many others. On May 1 the government filed a motion to drop the case, which was formally closed three weeks later. Since June, Calero has been speaking across the United States to spread the lessons of his successful fight. He will begin visits to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Sweden, and Iceland at the end of August.

The Eastern Market workers spent their half-hour lunch break listening to Calero’s explanation of the government’s decision to drop the case and discussing how his experience is applicable to other fights.

One worker described an experience inside the plant defending the job of a female co-worker who was fired by the company. A group of workers at that plant, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers, went to the union office after work to talk to the union leadership about what they could do to help get her job back. The company was forced to reinstate her with back pay.

Later that evening Calero addressed a public meeting held in a community art gallery in Southwest Detroit. Present were several workers who were instrumental in making Calero’s visit in March a success. Calero described his visit to the plant gate earlier in the day, thanked the workers for their help, and let them know that “we have every intention of deepening this fight by making the lessons of it available to others.”

These workers and others contributed more than $600 to help ensure that all the expenses incurred by the Calero defense committee are met in full and that the Political Rights Defense Fund (PRDF), which helped the RCDC get started, will have enough of a “grubstake” in its war chest for the next such struggle.
 

Some of those who came to the reception at the Pathfinder Bookstore asked Calero questions and expressed opinions on the difficult conditions and decisions immigrant workers face every day.

One man from Chile asked, “From what I understand, the U.S. government is benefiting from using undocumented workers to drive down the cost of labor—so what is the problem the government has with us?”

“They are using immigration policy as a spearhead to attack the entire working class,” said Calero. “They deny rights to immigrants by saying, ‘You’re here illegally. You broke laws, so constitutional rights cannot be extended to you.’ And this is parallel to attacks on workers who are not immigrants.”

Another worker asked, “Why are they trying to deport you now? Is it because you are part of a movement?”

Calero responded, “No. It is because of the movement I belong to that I am here today. It would have been much more difficult to fight and win without being a member of an organization—the Socialist Workers Party—that was instrumental in putting together this kind of campaign.

“There is no reason to think that I was singled out. They throw a wide dragnet and by doing that it is almost guaranteed that other militant workers will fall under the net,” he said.

Calero added, “The government’s problem is that they picked a fight they did not want right now. This happened at a moment when they are summarily deporting thousands of people, and they prefer to do so silently.

“In the face of this, what we do is maximize the possibility of winning by increasing the confidence and unity of those who stand up to fight,” he stated.

A woman in the audience asked Calero whether it was likely that workers without documents who marry for legal reasons would have the same ability and confidence to fight for their rights, since they “think they did something wrong.”

“Our position should be to defend unconditionally anyone in this position,” said Calero. “We start from the point of view that each one of us should be defended the same and each one of us should have the same ability to fight.”

Earlier in the day Calero visited workers at Hollander Home Fashions in Frackville, Pennsylvania, to thank them for signing a petition demanding the government drop its effort to deport him.

The workers at Hollander are members of UNITE, the largest union organizing workers in the garment and textile industry in the United States. Calero explained both why he was touring the country now and why it is crucial to understand that the trade unions are the organizations that can defend the working class internationally.

Calero was also interviewed by the Pottsville Republican and Evening Herald, the most widely circulated paper in the southern anthracite coalfields. The paper has been covering the case of Imam Shiraz Mansoor, who has been threatened with deportation to his native South Africa by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Mansoor is a leader of the Islamic Society of Schuylkill County. He was arrested at his home by DHS agents and locked up in the Berks County Prison in Reading, Pennsylvania, May 28. He is currently out of jail awaiting a hearing.

The DHS says it will deny Mansoor and his family residency on the grounds that being an “imam” cannot be counted as legitimate employment. The Unity Coalition at St. Mark’s United Church of Christ in Cressona, Pennsylvania, of which Mansoor is the vice president, is helping to organize his defense.
 

Calero met here with activists in the fight against police brutality and supporters of immigrant rights. He had lunch with Joyce Rogers, mother of Bernard Rogers, a young Black man who was shot to death by a housing authority cop in November 2002. Through the efforts of the Rogers family and the group, People Against Police Violence, the county coroner’s office decided to recommend that homicide charges be filed against the cop who shot the youth. But the district attorney has refused to do so.

Islamic Center president Adel Fergany also met with Calero. The Islamic Center has been active in opposing government harassment of immigrants, particularly those from predominantly Muslim countries.

On July 29 Calero spoke on his case at a public meeting held at the Community House. Joining him on the panel were Cici Wheeler of Hispanics for Peace; Renee Wilson, founder of People Against Police Violence; Sarah McAuliffe of the Irish American Unity Conference; and Christopher Remple, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Allegheny County Executive.

“I’m happy to be meeting a fighter, to be in a room full of fighters,” said Wilson. She thanked Calero’s party, the SWP, for its support for actions against police violence, and said the Militant “shows you that people are fighting all over the world.”

Remple spoke on behalf of the SWP. He thanked “all those who stood up with us during this fight.” The SWP has a long tradition of defending its members and others facing victimization, based on the principle that an injury to one is an injury to all, he said.

Sarah McAuliffe reported on the immigration cases of Irish activists John McNicholl and Ciarán Ferry. A fighter against British occupation of Northern Ireland, McNicholl was jailed in the infamous Long Kesh prison and escaped in 1975, making his way to the United States. He lived in this country for more than 20 years, working as a pipe fitter. On July 17 of this year he was kidnapped by immigration cops and deported the next day to Ireland.

Ciarán Ferry, a former member of the Irish Republican Army who also was imprisoned in Long Kesh, was released in the summer of 2000. Facing death threats in Ireland, he moved to the United States. In January he was arrested and charged with overstaying his visa even though he was in the middle of paperwork to resolve his status. He is imprisoned in Denver under a deportation order.

In his talk Calero noted that Ferry and Palestinian activist Farouk Abdel-Muhti are both in jail on immigration charges and are both being held in solitary confinement. “The government is doing this more now to try and break prisoners,” he said. On the previous day Calero visited Abdel-Muhti at the jail where he is being held near York, Pennsylvania. “Farouk wants to be put in the general prison population. He knows those are his people, just as I knew in immigration jail in Houston that the other inmates were just like my co-workers,” Calero said.

The meeting raised $320 toward the expenses of Calero’s defense campaign. A reception prior to the meeting was catered by the Oakland Café, a popular Middle Eastern restaurant.