Calero joins several other targets of government persecution who have drawn on the Political Rights Defense Fund (PRDF) since its formation in the 1970s.

The PRDF grew out of the nonpartisan defense committee set up to publicize and win broad backing for the legal fight launched in 1973 by the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialist Alliance. In that landmark lawsuit the socialist organizations charged the government and its agencies with conducting "illegal acts of blacklisting, harassment, electronic surveillance, burglary, mail tampering, and terrorism."

According to the trial documents, the government disruption program had begun in 1936 with a series of directives issued by President Roosevelt to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Five years later Hoover wrote to the bureau’s New York office complaining about the lack of information regarding the SWP, and instructed the agency to make every effort to obtain from book shops, informants and "other sources" whatever written materials existed about the working-class organization.

The trial began on April 2, 1981, after eight years of pretrial hearings in which thousands of FBI documents were forced into the open, and lasted three months. The defendants included the attorney general; the secretaries of state, defense, and treasury; the directors of the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and Defense Intelligence Agency; commissioners of the INS and the Civil Service; and the president of the United States.

Five years after the trial ended federal judge Thomas Griesa issued a sweeping indictment of the government. His August 25, 1986 ruling stated that the activities of the FBI were "patently unconstitutional" and "without statutory or regulatory authority."

Additional months of court hearings followed, aimed at determining the character of an injunction against the government to be issued by the judge. In those sessions the government admitted to having gathered at least 10 million pages of files on the SWP and YSA. Ten government agencies filed affidavits arguing that "national security" would be adversely affected by any injunction.  
 
Broad injunction issued
The judge rejected the government’s argument and issued a broad bar on cop agencies using any of the files to target the socialists. The 15-year battle ended in 1988 when the government dropped its appeal just days before the filing deadline. In addition to the injunction the court ordered the government to pay the SWP and YSA $264,000 in damages and $390,000 to their attorneys in legal fees.

The successful outcome of the trial would not have been possible without the political and financial support of the tens of thousands of defenders of civil liberties organized through the Political Rights Defense Fund. The fund held public meetings at every critical juncture and organized to get the maximum press coverage for the legal fight. It also published literature on the case.

The list of PRDF sponsors grew to include thousands of prominent individuals, victims of police repression, and fighters for democratic rights. They included six members of Congress; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; past victims of government repression; leaders of antiwar organizations and women’s rights groups; and members of the Communist Party, Democratic Socialists of America, and other political parties.

After paying the PRDF’s debts in full and closing its bank account, the board of directors of the fund established the foundation of the same name as part of ongoing efforts to make this victory available to others.

The ruling in the case placed a valuable new weapon in the hands of all working people fighting to defend their rights and living standards and all those struggling for progressive social change. The record of the fight can be found in FBI on Trial--The Victory in the Socialist Workers Party Suit against Government Spying, published by Pathfinder Press.  
 
Hector Marroquín campaign
Following the successful conclusion of its first campaign, the foundation supported the fight of Iranian-born socialist Mojgan Hariri-Vijeh to halt her deportation. It also backed efforts beginning in the late 1970s to defeat the government’s attempt to deport Mexican-born immigrant worker Hector Marroquín, and to establish his right to permanent residence.

Marroquín had been active in student protests in Mexico. According to records uncovered during his case, the FBI began keeping files on him when he was a 15-year-old high school student in Matamoros, Mexico. Having lived and worked in the United States as an undocumented worker for a few years Marroquín was arrested while trying to reenter the country after visiting with family in Mexico.

Backed by the PRDF, for 10 years Marroquín spoke up and down the country winning broad support for his case. Because of his socialist views, the INS stubbornly opposed his asylum claim. His request was finally rejected by the courts.

In the next stage of the fight, the PRDF and other Marroquín supporters drew on the landmark victory in the just-concluded suit against the government.

The INS had been one of the government agencies on the losing end of that case. During the trial its representatives had argued that denial of access to information from the FBI regarding membership in the SWP would "impact [its] ability to properly determine an individual’s proper immigration status."

The judge effectively rejected that reasoning, making no distinction between citizens and non-citizens in his decision prohibiting the government agencies from using the information illegally gathered against members of the socialist organizations. This marked an important gain for all immigrant workers.

In late 1986, less than one month after the government withdrew its appeal in SWP vs. Attorney General, Marroquín won a temporary residence card under the government’s immigrant amnesty program. Following that he was permitted a long-delayed hearing on his application for permanent residence at which the government was forced to concede there was no political barrier to his being granted a visa.

Two years later the foundation initiated the defense effort for Mark Curtis, an Iowa meat packer. In 1988 Curtis, who had been active in opposing police brutality, supporting the rights of undocumented workers, and opposing the U.S.-backed contra war in Central America, was framed up on burglary and rape charges and severely beaten while in the custody of the Des Moines police. Earlier the FBI had kept files on Curtis when he was active in the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.

Despite the broad international support amassed in his defense, the socialist worker was convicted in September 1988 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The fight took more than seven years before Curtis was released to parole authorities in Illinois.
 
 
Related article:
Defenders of Calero campaign to stop move to deport him
Inside an INS jail: the U.S. ‘justice’ system at work
Houston daily reports on INS detention of ‘Militant’ writer
U.S. private prisons: brutal and profitable
Meatpackers plan defense fund raiser
Young Socialists join fight against the deportation of Róger Calero
Stop deportation of Róger Calero  
 
 
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