For the country's highest court to now tell the bosses they will not be subject to back pay penalties for firing immigrants without "proper" papers is simply giving the employers a green light to hold the threat of dismissal over the heads of millions of workers.

The capitalist rulers of the United States--that tiny handful of superwealthy families that live off the exploitation and oppression of working people around the world--have drawn tens of millions of workers and peasants from other countries into the mines, mills, factories, and farms at the heart of U.S. industry. Immigrant workers are denied the proper employment and residency papers by the government because it helps keep them as a superexploited layer in the working class. The capitalists pay these workers less, deny them overtime and unemployment pay, and subject them to brutal working conditions and long hours.

The bosses and their government hope to keep the working class divided, with native-born workers viewing immigrants as competitors and "illegals" rather than fellow workers and co-fighters who bring class-struggle experience and traditions that strengthen the entire working class.

The Militant has covered numerous struggles over the past years that demonstrate how the U.S. rulers are failing to keep immigrants silent and separated from the working class as a whole. More and more they are part of, and helping to lead, struggles for unionization, against attacks on workers' rights, and in defense of affirmative action and other gains won through past battles.

The recent Supreme Court ruling comes as the U.S. government has reinforced its anti-immigrant drive under the guise of its "war on terror." This includes the jailing of some 1,200 people, many of whom remain incarcerated; reinforcing use of secret evidence, star-chamber hearings and indefinite detentions; and subjecting students and other immigrants from the Mideast to background checks and interrogations.

The Supreme Court ruling won't stop workers from fighting in their own class interests, seeking to form unions, and resisting the bosses attacks. It raises the stakes for the labor movement in the battle to unite all working people. It poses the challenge to the unions to join the fight to prevent the bosses and their government from turning section after section of the working class into pariah layers outside of legal protections and rights won in struggle by working people.  
 
 
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