Newark, NJ — Following the lead of students and teachers in Minneapolis, more than 60 students and faculty led by Progressive Labor Party members at a community college gathered together to strategize on the fight against ICE in New Jersey.  The college has a deeply international student population, and hundreds have been directly affected by the racist, deportation-heavy era of US policy for decades, and especially in recent months arresting and harassing residents and even students from the college.  PLP knows only workers protect workers so we decided we needed to do something to get students and faculty prepared in case ICE comes to our campus. Like colleges across the country that have bowed to the bosses’ crackdowns against the student-led anti-genocide movement in Palestine, the lame duck college administration has done nothing to offer support or any sense of collective action to protect students and workers from the deportations.  In this void, students and workers with PLP guidance took the lead with a teach-in. 

ICE needs to be crushed

ICE agents swept communities in Hoboken and Jersey City, Students voiced what they were experiencing in their families and neighborhoods.  The school administration has yet to offer a comprehensive plan of how they will defend students and workers if ICE should come knocking—more likely banging— on our doors.

One student explained that the ICE raids have been going on since Barack Obama’s administration, but with an increased ferocity under Donald Trump 2.0.  Another emphatically stated that the ICE pogroms of terror are blatantly racist against Black and Brown communities.  After several skits demonstrating Constitutional rights that are under attack by ICE, one student asked, “What rights do we really have?” succinctly expressing that workers have no rights under capitalism and rising fascism (see glossary on page 6).

New Jersey is currently experiencing ramped up targeted ICE arrests and raids throughout the state, from Morristown, to New Brunswick to Jersey City. ICE has arrested 3,000 immigrant workers from January -October 2025 alone (NJ Spotlight News, 10/9/2025). Newark has seen two massive ICE raids on the same job site, a fish market in the largely immigrant neighborhood of Ironbound. The last one in fall saw 60 officers, heat seeking drones hunting workers inside the building, and a telecommunications shut down that made it impossible for neighbors to alert rapid response organizers via their cell phones.

Only an Armed, United Working Class Can Defeat ICE and Fascism

At PLP members' suggestion, a group of students gathered after the meeting to pledge to organize defense of our school community. We talked more about how we could organize. We have been steadily but stealthily sharing more CHALLENGE as the fascist crackdown on our campus ramps up. 

Though CHALLENGEs newspapers were not available for distribution at this event, an effort was made to encourage students to argue for the need for militant, united action in the face of fascist attacks on our class. Many students said that we need to come together and fight as a united school to defend one another. One student warned that the situation will only get worse, so we must be prepared. Another militant student remarked, “They have guns—maybe we need guns too!”

Clearly, workers and students recognize the dangers we face with rabid fascism on the rise and with U.S. and Israeli bosses seemingly intent on pushing the world toward a third world war at the expense of workers around the globe.
Students have begun meeting to determine whether forming a student club would be an effective way to organize on campus and build networks with students at other local colleges to oppose these deportations. In doing so, we are taking inspiration and leadership from organizing efforts at other campuses, such as City University of New York (CUNY).

We also plan to attend a teach-in at a CUNY in the Bronx later this week. One valuable lesson from our own teach-in is that when we are united and grounded in communist ideas, we can build the strength needed to win.