Upwards of a hundred demonstrators converged on New York University’s Kimmel Center April 9 to protest the appearance of Chris Simcox, co-founder of the fascistic vigilante group, “Minuteman Project.” The racist Simcox was hosted by the College Republicans in a phony “debate” on immigration.

This latest provocation came a few weeks after a sinister “Find the Illegal Immigrant Contest” at NYU sponsored by the College Republicans, which was met with an outpouring of angry protest by hundreds of demonstrators (see article). It also came shortly after the Columbia University administration announced disciplinary measures against seven students from among the hundreds who protested a Minuteman speech at Columbia last October.

Organized on short notice, tonight’s protest was initiated by the Coalition for Immigrant Rights at NYU. The CUNY Internationalist Clubs helped publicize the protest and mobilized a contingent of 20 students and workers. Our chants – including “Mobilize workers power to smash racist terror,” “Racists out” and “La lucha obrera no tiene fronteras” (The workers struggle has no borders) – were picked up by the crowd, which included a sizable contingent from the Progressive Labor Party as well as activists from a number of other groups.

Police initially penned protestors in with steel barricades, but demonstrators soon poured out of the pen and picketed in front of the entrance to the Kimmel Center. Inside the auditorium, scores of protestors – who had to go through a metal detector and show NYU ID cards – held up signs, shouted, chanted and frequently drowned out Simcox’s immigrant-bashing diatribe. The Minuteman founder called the protesters “the face of the devil” (El Diario-La Prensa, 10 April).

We print below the speech at the protest rally given by our comrade which was greeted enthusiastically by the crowd.

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Internationalist  contingent at April 9 NYU protest against Minuteman racist vigilantes. IG banner calls for “Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants! Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party!”
(Internationalist photo)

My name is Erica Torres and I am a student at City College and a member of the Internationalist Club. Together with the Internationalist Group, we’ve been working to bring out students from several CUNY campuses today along with workers from key unions and immigrant organizations in the city.

Let’s be clear: the “Minutemen” are not some kind of debating society. They are violent racist vigilantes who work hand in hand with the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations and other fascists. At Columbia University last October one of these racist thugs kicked a student protestor in the head with a steel-toed boot.

The Internationalists joined many others to protest the Minuteman provocation at Columbia, where protestors stood up to this racist violence and succeeded in shutting down the Minuteman provocation. We must all defend the Columbia protestors against administration reprisals.

We say: “Minute-Klan” get the hell out of New York! That means they should be driven out whenever they try to stage one of their provocations to whip up lynch-type terror against immigrants. And that goes for junior “Minute-Klan” types like those who staged the vile “Find the Illegal Alien” stunt here at NYU in February.

Like the working class of New York, CUNY students are largely immigrants. We must unite with the power of the working class to drive out the Minutemen, because this is a question of power. The Minutemen are part of the attack on immigrants that has brought large-scale raids by the ICE immigration cops – the “Migra” – all around the country.

We need to mobilize a stronger power to defeat these attacks, which are coming from the very top, from both the Republicans and the Democrats. That means joining with the power of the working class, including huge numbers of immigrants, who keep this city and this country running. We have to unite with workers around the world like the teachers of Oaxaca, Mexico, who continue to face bloody repression.

My family comes from Puerto Rico, which was the biggest colony in the world until it was surpassed by Iraq. We say: DEFEAT U.S. imperialism. The racist attacks on immigrants are closely connected to the imperialist war in Iraq that we can and must defeat.  The fight against racism and colonialism can only succeed if it is a revolutionary fight. We need a revolutionary workers party for a socialist revolution.

La lucha obrera no tiene fronteras. THE WORKERS’ STRUGGLE HAS NO BORDERS! Minuteman racists out of New York!! n