Calero is an editor of Perspectiva Mundial and a staff writer for the Militant. He has faced the threat of deportation since December 3, when he was seized by agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at Houston Intercontinental Airport. At the time, he was returning to the United States from reporting assignments in Cuba and Mexico.

The March 5 peace action at Wayne State University involved some 200 students. After talking to protesters about his case, Calero was invited to the Student Center to speak at an Antiwar Café. Ben Duell, a campus activist who helped to organize Calero’s tour, introduced him and encouraged participants to build support for the defense campaign.

In his presentation Calero described the facts of the case, and explained that many other immigrant workers also face victimization. The agents who detained him, he said, cited his plea-bargain conviction in 1988 for selling one ounce of marijuana to an undercover cop. The INS had previously waived the conviction in granting him permanent residency, which he has held for 13 years.

Attacks on immigrant rights are part of Washington’s broader offensive against workers’ rights, Calero said--an offensive that proceeds alongside the march to war in the Middle East and elsewhere.

"As the bombing of Iraq intensifies, the chauvinistic campaign to divide us on the basis of who has papers and who doesn’t will also intensify," Calero said. "We will do the opposite of what the rulers expect us to do," he stated, "by demanding our rights, organizing, fighting to win, and making them pay the highest political price for their actions."

Calero had discussed the same points the previous day in his remarks to the eight workers who assembled to meet him outside an Eastern Market meatpacking plant. He talked about his experience as a meat packer in the Dakota Premium plant in South St. Paul, Minnesota, where he had worked before taking up his position at Perspectiva Mundial. He had been part of a union-organizing drive there. Several of the Eastern Market workers compared their own situation to his account of that ongoing fight against speedup and for dignity.  
 
Bosses’ tactics of divide and rule
Much of the discussion focused on the question of racism and how the bosses try to divide workers--Black, Latino, white, men, women--to prevent them from coming together to fight against common injustice on the job.

Fernando Reyes, a worker at the plant who had helped set up the meeting, also spoke at the March 2 public meeting, making an appeal for financial contributions.

Alberto Villagómez, a production worker in a tortilleria in southwest Detroit, welcomed the 30 participants to the event. He had helped to arrange the venue of Holy Redeemer Church, a prominent church in the area. Villagómez had also been instrumental in securing two articles about the case in El Central, a local newspaper, in the weeks before Calero’s visit.

"I hope you take time to look at the letters of support for Calero we have on display and enjoy the refreshments," said Villagómez. "We hope for your support and financial contributions as well."

Calero shared the speakers platform with Ignacio Meneses, a co-coordinator of the National Network on Cuba and the US/Cuba Labor Exchange. Meneses condemned the ongoing attack on democratic rights under the guise of the "war on terrorism." He also spoke about the case of the five Cuban political prisoners currently incarcerated in jails in five separate states. Meneses called on all those present to support the fight for freedom of the Cuban five, and to oppose the authorities’ recent move to lock them all in solitary confinement.

"The first victory in my case was getting out of jail," said Calero. The INS agents had locked him up in their Houston detention center the day of his arrest. He gave the credit for his release to the dozens of people who sent letters of protest to the Houston INS office.

The defense committee is still calling for letters protesting the deportation attempt to be sent to the INS offices in Houston, Calero said. He reported that the authorities had said they would not contest his lawyers’ motion to transfer the hearing on his case from Houston to Newark, New Jersey, where he lives. The new date for the hearing--postponed from March 25--has yet to be announced.

"What Róger is fighting for is not just his case, but for thousands of others who face similar situations," said Reyes in motivating a collection that netted around $400. "We need to collect funds to help pay for the phone calls, producing materials, and making it possible for Róger to continue his travels and get the word out as broadly as possible about his case," Reyes said. "The success of this struggle depends on people like us."