The files containing the record of the successful fight to prevent the deportation of Róger Calero have been organized for shipment to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in Madison. When offered the files, Helmut Knies, head of Collection Development at the society, expressed great interest in receiving them.

Last December, Calero was seized at Houston Intercontinental Airport by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) when he returned to the country from a reporting assignment to Cuba and Mexico. The government’s immigration police—la migra—threw Calero into detention and began “exclusion” proceedings against him.

The immigration cops cited, as grounds for deportation, the fact that Calero had been arrested in 1988—while a high school student in Los Angeles—on charges of selling an ounce of marijuana to an undercover cop posing as a fellow student. Threatened with a jail term, Calero copped a plea and received a suspended 60-day sentence, three years probation, and a $50 fine.

Backed by his publications and his party, the Socialist Workers Party, Calero and others who came to his defense immediately launched a public campaign to support his right to live and work in the United States. These included supporters of the rights of immigrants and trade unions, and freedom of the press and political rights. They turned to the Political Rights Defense Fund for financial help to get started and appealed for messages and petitions to the INS urging deportation proceedings be halted.

After six months of expanding public attention and protest, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—which took over direction of the government’s immigration police and prosecutors—decided to cut their losses and moved to drop the fight. On May 22, Immigration Judge William Strasser ordered the case ended, writing: “Reason for termination: Respondent is not deportable.”

Files containing the political, legal, and financial records of the defense fight have been prepared for shipment to the Historical Society in Wisconsin, where they will be accessible to anyone who wants to study them.

The files present a vivid picture of the defense fight and the political events that surrounded it: defense committee literature and mailings, letters from around the world urging the government to drop its deportation effort, videos of television programs and public rallies in support of Calero’s fight, key legal documents, and photographs, including of Calero in detention.

The files are introduced by an overview of the Calero defense fight, an index to the files, and a financial summary of the defense campaign.  
 
Campaign reflects workers’ struggles
“The successful fight to stop the deportation of Perspectiva Mundial associate editor Róger Calero,” the defense committee’s introduction begins, “flowed from opposition to the deepening attacks in the U.S. over the last decade against immigrant workers, the union movement and political rights, including the freedom of the press.” These attacks have led to resistance.

“Calero himself participated in a ground-breaking union organizing drive at Dakota Premium Foods in South St. Paul, Minnesota,” the report says. “Packinghouse workers at Dakota—immigrant and native-born—came together to fight to bring United Food and Commercial Workers Union [UFCW] Local 789 into the plant. They won, and won a contract which put them in a better position to defend their wages and working conditions.”

These experiences led UFCW Local 789—its members and leaders—to take on a central role in organizing support for Calero. Bill Pearson, then president of the local, signed on as a national co-chair of the defense committee. The local organized one of the first public rallies for Calero on January 11 at the union hall. More than 100 packinghouse workers, other members of Local 789, and area unionists, students, and political activists gathered to hear Pearson and Calero explain the fight and its signifi cance for the labor movement.

Spearheaded by Local 789, unions in the Twin Cities became a bulwark of the defense, including fund-raising for the defense committee. Thousands of dollars were contributed from union locals, area labor federations, and individual union officers and militants.

Packinghouse unionists in other areas, especially in the Midwest—from Omaha, Nebraska, to Des Moines, Iowa, to Chicago—organized meetings for Calero and spread the word about his fight.

Workers who found themselves in combat with the employers and the government all across the country were attracted to Calero’s defense campaign. From garment workers fighting for a union at the Point Blank plant in southern Florida, to meat packers on strike at Tyson in Wisconsin to farm workers in National City, Florida, and Yakima Valley, in Washington State, Calero found an audience eager to discuss experiences in struggle.

The defense committee files reflect the wide support for Calero among fighters for the rights of immigrants and others facing attack from la migra. Calero spoke out on behalf of and won backing from a number of these, including Farouk Abdel-Muhti, Omar Jamal, Sami Al-Arian, and Ciarán Ferry. He also received support from five Cuban revolutionaries framed up and imprisoned in U.S. federal penitentiaries.

Many workers facing the threat of deportation came to Calero’s meetings and spoke out during the discussion periods. At a February public meeting for Calero in New York, Omar Arango came from Elizabeth, New Jersey. He explained to the unionists and supporters at the meeting that he had read about Calero’s fight in the New York daily paper Hoy. He told the crowd he was inspired by Calero’s fight and intended to use its lessons in his own effort to win the right to stay in the United States.

In June, Arango organized dozens of family members, friends and supporters to attend his immigration hearing. He mounted a carefully prepared challenge to the government’s move to throw him out of the country. At the end of the hearing, the government dropped its effort to deport Arango. He returned to a meeting for Calero the next month in Newark, New Jersey, to report his victory.

As Calero’s fight grew, broad support was won from defenders of freedom of the press. Juan Gonzalez, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, lent his group’s backing. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reported the major turns in Calero’s fight on its press service.

Supporters of political rights raised their voices on Calero’s behalf. Bruce Nestor, president of the National Lawyers Guild, and Lennox Hinds, vice-president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, were among the hundreds who sent letters and made statements backing Calero’s fight that are in the files donated by the defense committee.  
 
Government throws in the towel
In the face of this growing support, the government decided to move to minimize its losses. Contained in the defense committee’s files is the April 29 motion filed by DHS lawyers to drop the case.

“Circumstances of the case have changed after the notice was issued,” read an Immigration Regulation cited by the government lawyers, “to such an extent that continuation is no longer in the best interest of the government.”

On May 22, Immigration Judge William Strasser issued his final order halting the government’s effort to deport Calero.

Following the victory, Calero’s defense committee launched an international tour to publicize the lessons of his fight and share experiences with others organizing to meet employer and government attacks.

“If we learn from each other how to fight more effectively, we can increase the number of skirmishes we win today,” Calero said in a statement released when the tour was launched. “I hope the lessons of my campaign will make a contribution to advancing our fighting ability.”

Calero traveled across the country, and internationally to Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Iceland. He spoke at public meetings, union gatherings, to the media, and in informal sessions with unionists, immigrant workers, and others looking to share experiences and learn to fight as effectively as possible.

One highlight of the tour was the meeting in Utah. “Calero spoke before two dozen miners from the Co-op mine—overwhelmingly immigrant workers from Mexico—who came to congratulate him on his victory,” the introduction to the files reports, “but mainly to learn from his experiences in the Dakota organizing drive to help in their efforts to bring the United Mine Workers union into their mine.”

On September 15 Calero landed at Kennedy International Airport at the conclusion of the international tour. He reported to immigration. “The agent swiped his permanent residence card,” the committee report in the files states, “and carefully read what came up on his computer. Then he turned to Calero and said, ‘welcome back to the country.’”  
 
Financial summary
Included in the archive prepared for the Wisconsin library is a financial summary of Calero’s fight.

As the report explains, the way the fight intersected with efforts of others to defend themselves from attacks by the bosses and the government fueled growing support. This was true financially as well.

The Róger Calero Defense Committee raised $50,610 and spent $47,487 in the course of its fight to stop Calero’s deportation. Contributions came from workers, unionists, and supporters of political rights. The overwhelming majority were modest, either sent in the mail or given at public meetings.

The committee’s largest expenses were for travel and outreach, legal fees, for printing literature, and to organize a public office staffed by volunteers.

In closing down the defense committee, Calero decided to donate the remaining funds to the Political Rights Defense Fund, which had responded to his arrest by placing its funds and resources at the disposal of his fight.

The State Historical Society in Wisconsin contains the archives of many previous defense campaigns, including the files of the Civil Rights Defense Committee, which was formed in 1941 to defend leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and the Teamsters union in Minneapolis, who were framed up under the thought-control Smith Act for the class-struggle example they were setting in the labor movement.

The entire record of the successful lawsuit of the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialist Alliance against the FBI, CIA, and other government agencies for spying and harassment is also in the Madison archives, donated by the Political Rights Defense Fund.

All of these archives contain the records and lessons of fights that were interwoven with central threads of the class struggle at the time.

“My fight was successful because it grew out of these conflicts and drew support from others in struggle,” Calero said at the conclusion of his international tour. “Everywhere I toured, others took strength from my fight and looked to incorporate its experiences into their struggles.”

“This fight is the property of all those who lent a hand and of all those in whose interest it was waged,” the defense committee’s introduction to its files concludes.  
 
 
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