“My party opposes this attack on undocumented workers,” Lyons said. “Just as we’ve opposed denying driver’s licenses to workers without papers, Social Security no-match letters to employers, and la migra raids to round up and deport workers.”

Lyons supported a January 27 march in downtown Los Angeles against the anti-immigrant plan. The action was led by a contingent of day laborers, many of whom have been subjected to arrests and violence.

The controversial plan to finger immigrants was approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. It is the first time that a California jail will be allowed to screen prisoners for immigration violations. The plan came in response to Los Angeles County sheriff Lee Baca’s request to the Department of Homeland Security to hire more federal immigration agents and assign them to the jails.

According to the Los Angeles Almanac, the “world’s largest known jail facility” is the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, which is located here. Government officials estimate that “about 40,000 of the 170,000 inmates who come through the county jail each year are in the United States illegally,” the Los Angeles Times reported. The jail houses about 4,500 prisoners and employs 2,400 guards, cops, and other personnel.

“The employing class goes all over the world superexploiting the labor of workers from other countries and sucking the wealth produced by the people of those countries into the pockets of the rich here,” Lyons said. “We think workers have a right to go wherever they feel they need to in search of work and a better life, without restrictions.”

The Los Angeles County jail system is a “hell-hole for anyone who has served time there,” said Lyons. “Last year five inmates were killed inside the prison, and it is not uncommon to house six prisoners in a cell. There was also a major staph infection that raged through cell blocks. The conditions are deplorable.”

Lyons pointed out that the new policy to train police to identify undocumented immigrants is another good reason to oppose spending more money to increase the size of the police force—a proposal pushed by all the Democratic and Republican party candidates in the mayoral race.

In an interview with Channel 35 TV, a local cable station, Lyons said, “I am against spending a cent on the police. Their job is to defend the interests of big business, including the big business of drugs, and to keep workers in line while the big time criminals—the capitalists—go free. I am for bringing the cops who have beaten or killed our youth to justice—like the cops who beat Donovan Jackson, or killed the sons of the Martinez, Quesada, or Damion families, to name just a few who I’ve marched with. It is no accident that the main torturers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq are prison guards and other kinds of cops who got their experience here in the U.S.A.”

The socialist campaign is the working-class alternative to the capitalist candidates in the election, which will take place March 8. Lyons has obtained ballot status.  
 
 
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