[...] capital manipulates the immigration question. For if capital is no longer concerned with securing an immigration flow, it has every reason to exploit immigration as a source of division within the working class. It is not hypocrisy for Donald Trump to both provoke anti-immigrant sentiment while also staffing undocumented immigrants in his business, it is good strategy. It not only serves to silence his immigrant workers, many of whom are too afraid of detention and deportation to demand better wages or working conditions, it serves to undermine the labor movement as a whole, channeling native workers’ frustration and anxiety away from class exploitation and inequality. And as I have outlined above, Trump is not an anomaly; he is only particularly vocal. Responding to this onslaught without addressing the distinction at the core of its divisive power — between “native” and “immigrant” — is folly. Yet this is what major labor organizations like the AFL-CIO do when they continue to support the basic principle of immigration restriction.