This past week, PSL received a letter from the US Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism for its alleged role in the resistance in Los Angeles. The letter requests the PSL retain communications and documents from November 2024 to present, threatening further investigation.
Separately, 215 immigrant rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and Unión del Barrio, received letters from the US House Committee on Homeland Security, for their alleged role in “providing services or support to inadmissible aliens.”
Only the longstanding but oft-forgotten strategy of the united front — marching separately and striking together — can resist these attacks now.
This represents a dangerous escalations of state repression against the left. Already, Palestine solidarity activists like Mahmoud Khalil and immigrant rights activists like Jeanette Vizguerra have experienced targeted arrests and attempted deportations. Organizations on college and university campuses have had their funding and rights to organize revoked.
We sharply disagree with the PSL on many things. We oppose their political positions, their methods of organizing their party and their front groups, their actions inside movements, and their behavior towards other groups on the left. We also sharply disagree with NGOs on their strategies for change and their focus on surface-level reforms. But every organization on the left must unite and defend against these attacks. The state is targeting PSL and NGOs today; tomorrow it could be any one of us.
A public, democratically organized defense campaign, uniting the whole left, is essential for pushing back against state repression. Unity does not mean papering over differences nor muting criticism. It means defending each other against forces that seek to do all of us harm.
Only the longstanding but oft-forgotten strategy of the united front — marching separately and striking together — can resist these attacks now. It can help push right-wing forces back on their heels and advance us towards a better world.
