“I was deported from the U.S.A, because as a Negro woman Communist of West Indian descent, I was a thorn in their side…”
Since the start of its second term, the Trump regime has enacted a domestic strategy that serves the dual function of placating its rabid base and suppressing domestic protest in the face of economic destruction and rapid imperial decline. It is a strategy that is both racist and authoritarian and often draws on a supposed immigrant, and alleged communist, threat to the MAGA homeland.
Indeed, in the past few weeks the U.S. supreme court upheld the revocation of the Temporary Protected Status for Haitian asylum seekers, putting 350,000 at immediate risk of deportation. An attack on “birthright” citizenship law was barely repelled in the courts. The Justice Department engineered the sentencing of several leftist activists who had protested against ICE and the zionist genocide of Palestinians to a collective 450 years in prison. It used the September 2025, National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-7 ) that designated any protests by leftists as being “antifa,” and “antifa” as “domestic terrorists.” Meanwhile, Trump cawed about “godless communists” supposedly taking over the country during remarks made in the lead up to the US anniversary celebrations – that is, the morbid celebration of the “counterrevolution” of theft of indigenous land and the continued enslavement of Africans.
Trump’s redbaiting and his regime’s grotesque anti-immigrant and antiBlack racism seem to signal a new era of domestic repression, using age-old discourses of anti-communism and anti-immigration. But it is not a new tactic for the US elite; rather, it is a return to an earlier time of McCarthyism in the late 1940s and early 1950s and laws like the Smith Act (1940), the Taft-Hartley Act (1947), the McCarran Act (1950), and the Communist Control Act (1954), set the stage for attacks on the activism for civil and human rights.
Many Black activists were caught up in the McCarthy anti-communist witchhunts. One was Claudia Jones, the Trinidad-born activist who was prominent in the Communist Party (USA), who fought against Jim Crow, and the "triple oppression” of Black women and other women of color. Significantly, Jones understood U.S imperialism and its aggressive wars as being motivated by race and white supremacy, and advocated international solidarity and peace.
At the height of the anti-communist pogroms in the U.S. Jones was arrested three times. The first time was in 1951 along with a number of Communist activists, for violating the Smith Act (also known as the Alien Registration Act), which was a product of the suspicion that immigrants were bringing radical ideas (such as communism) to the U.S. In 1955, Jones was arrested again and was imprisoned for nine months before being released and deported to Britain under the provisions of the McCarran Act (also called the Internal Security Act of 1950) which sought to expose holding “subversive,” that is, “communist,” thoughts. Jones was deported despite living in the U.S. since she was 8 years old.
In 1956, a year after she was deported to Britain, Jones was interviewed by George Bowrin, a reporter with the Caribbean News (a London-based socialist, anti-imperialist, and anti-colonial newspaper). In the interview, Jones discusses the socioeconomic and political conditions in the U.S. – especially the plight of Black folks under Jim Crow, the resilience of the Caribbean immigrant community, and the major threat posed to human and civil rights by the anti-communist frenzy that captured the U.S.
Although published seven-decades ago, the interview resonates in the present. Jones’ analysis of political and social conditions in the US finds a parallel in the present. For this reason, we reprint this important interview with the great Claudia Jones below.
“I was deported because I fought colour bar”
Claudia Jones
Why were you deported from the United States, Miss Jones?
I was a victim of the McCarthyite hysteria against independent political ideas in the U.S.A.—a hysteria which penalizes anyone who holds ideas contrary to the official pro-war, pro-reactionary, pro-fascist line of the white ruling class of that country.
I was deported from the U.S.A, because as a Negro woman Communist of West Indian descent, I was a thorn in their side in my opposition to Jim Crow racist discrimination against 16 million Negro Americans in the United States, in my work for redress of these grievances, for unity of Negro and white workers, for women’s rights and my general political activity urging the American people to help by their struggles to change the present foreign and domestic policy of the United States.
I was deported and refused an opportunity to complete my American citizenship because I fought for peace, against the huge arms budget which funds should be directed to improving the social needs of the people.
I was deported because I urged prosecution of the lynchers rather than prosecution of Communists and other democratic Americans who oppose the lynchers and big financiers and war mongers the real advocates of force and violence in the U.S.A.
Is there any special significance to the fact that you are a West Indian and, as such were deported from the United States?
Yes, I definitely think so. The very law under which I was deported, the reactionary Walter-McCarran law widely known for its special racist bins towards West Indians and peoples of Asiatic descent. This law, which came into being as a result of the whole reactionary drive against progressive ideas in the United States, encourages immigration of fascist scum from Europe but restricts West Indian immigration, once in their thousands annually to the United States, to 100 persons per year, from all the Caribbean islands.
This works special hardship among West Indians who have family ties and who are permanent residents and citizens of the U.S.A.
You are a Communist, are you not Miss Jones? Would you tell us what led you to become a Communist?
Gladly. From an early age, like most native Negro Americans and with the additional penalty of being foreign born and a Negro in the United States, I experienced the indignity of second-class citizenship in the U.S. My parents emigrated from the West Indies in 1924 in the hope of finding greater economic opportunity and freedom to rear their children. But what we found instead in the U.S. was not only economic poverty for the working class, but the special brand of American racism—Jim Crow.
In the U.S.A. no matter what the social class status, no Negro escapes the scourge of Jim Crow.
I learned that those who fought most consistently for the interests of the workers, for their trade union organization and social needs were the Communists.
My daily experiences as a Negro youth in the U.S.A, led me to search out political forces that were doing something about these things; political forces who not only fought on a day to day basis to alleviate these conditions but who had a perspective as to a radical solution of these conditions.
I learned through study and participation in the Communist movement that the Communist Party, based on its political science, the science of Marxism-Leninism, that these conditions were man-made and therefore could be changed by mankind through under-standing of their origin and to eliminate these practices and conditions.
So that it is as a result of these struggles that you WERE indicted, convicted, and jailed in the United States?
Yes, for these struggles, I was indicted, convicted, and served a year and a day sentence despite a heart condition and related illnesses, under the infamous Smith Act—a reactionary statute under which progressive fighters are convicted and jailed not for committing any overt act, but merely for their ideas.
Did you ever meet West Indians in the U.S. Could you tell us something about their conditions?
Yes. There are over 100,000 West Indians in New York City alone. The West Indian community in the States plays an active political, economic and social role in the life of the nation, and particularly lends it’s [sic] strength to advancing the struggles of the Negro people in the U.S.A. for full equality and freedom. Numerous West Indians are among the most active trade unionists in industry,
Then there are numerous West Indian professionals associated with various political and social welfare organizations in the community. As a whole West Indians in the U.S.A. constantly express concern and support for the liberation struggles of the people in the West Indies, for freedom from colonial exploitation and slavery, for dignity and self-government.
Would you say something about your view of the role of the women in the West Indies?
I have been quite impressed with the activities of the women of the West Indies and their growing participation in the liberation movement as well as the international movement for peace, security and the rights of children. There is no question but that West Indian women represent an indispensable ally in the fight for colonial freedom, because women are triply exploited in the colonies, as women, as mothers and as colonials, subjected to indignities and great suffering because of the status of their countries.
Participation of increasing numbers of West Indian women side by side with their men in struggle for national independence and self-government will grow because women above all, want a better life, dignity and equality and a better world in which their children will live.
Is there anything else you would would [sic] like to add?
Yes, I would like to thank West Indians in the Caribbean, in Britain and America, as well as all other democratic and progressive forces who interceded in my behalf while jailed for my ideas in an American prison.
“I was deported because I fought colour bar”: Claudia Jones interviewed by…. Caribbean News (London), 1956.
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