PSL members took control of the microphones, not to advance a socialist program capable of mobilizing the working class against ICE and the capitalist state, but to lead repeated chants of “ICE out of everywhere,” “ICE out of Houston” and “Power to the people.”

One PSL speaker presented the betrayal of the mass anti-ICE movement in Minnesota as an example to follow, declaring, “They held a general strike.”

There was no general strike in Minneapolis. There were two enormous demonstrations involving as many as 100,000 people, reflecting overwhelming working class opposition to the federal occupation and the murders of Good and Pretti. But the trade union bureaucracies, including the Teamsters, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Communications Workers of America, explicitly barred workers from striking, citing no-strike clauses in their contracts.

The central lesson of Minneapolis is that the working class must break with the Democratic Party, the union apparatus and every form of middle-class reformism. A genuine general strike must be consciously prepared through the formation of democratic rank-and-file committees in every workplace, independent of the union bureaucracies, and through the unification of workers across industries, nationalities and borders. Its aim cannot be to pressure the capitalist politicians who created and funded ICE, but to fight for workers’ power and the abolition of the capitalist system.

The PSL speaker then invited a representative of the Democratic Socialists of America to the stage. She recounted her appeals to Democratic Houston Mayor John Whitmire at an earlier press conference, appeals that predictably fell on deaf ears. She concluded by directing opposition back behind the very party collaborating with the Trump administration.

“We will see you in City Hall on Tuesday, and in November we will see you at the ballot box,” she said.

Democratic state Representative Christina Morales, who represents Texas House District 145, was also provided a platform. Morales called for an “independent investigation” into Salgado Araujo’s murder before effectively blaming the population for failing to elect enough Democrats.

“We will not work until we have justice for Lorenzo”: Hundreds protest ICE murder of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas