Resisting Trump Regime Attacks on Immigrants: “This is no time for business as usual”
New Coverage March 5, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Urgently Needed—A BROAD Outpouring in Support of Immigrants!
January 22, 2018
In recent months, weeks, and now practically every day, our immigrant brothers and sisters have been going into the streets and into the halls of Congress, risking arrest and deportation to challenge “business as usual,” and resist the most vicious, blatant, and criminal assault on the rights, the dignity, the humanity, and the very lives of immigrants in this country in their millions. All of those who are NOT immigrants must stand shoulder to shoulder with these courageous immigrants, pour into the streets and find every other possible way to actively refuse and stand up against this fascist regime’s advancing assault on immigrants...
From RefuseFascism.org, A Letter to Chapters:
The Trump/Pence Ethnic Cleansing Attacks on Immigrants and Immigration: Qualitative, Comprehensive, and a Linchpin in Forging a Fascist America— The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
February 12, 2018
From RefuseFascism.org:
FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE MUSLIMS,
THEN THEY CAME FOR THE IMMIGRANTS
Not This Time…
Stand Up Now with the Immigrants
This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
January 26, 2018
Chicago Clergy’s Protest Calls on People to “Stand with the Dreamers”
February 7, 2018
Chicago clergy rally for Dreamers
On Monday, February 5, in 1 degree weather, almost 100 clergy and members of faith communities and organizations gathered at Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago to demand protection for the Dreamers. The call for the rally said, “100 clergy from across the Chicagoland area will join together to call on Congress to protect DREAMers. February 5th marks one month before the March 5th DACA deadline, after which, over 900 DREAMers will lose their protection from deportation and their ability to work in the U.S. every single day.”
San Francisco: Protests Target ICE and Their Immigrant Round-Up Plans
February 5, 2018
Projection of “GESTAPO” on the ICE building in San Francisco, January 29
There have been recent reports in the press that ICE is preparing major raids in the San Francisco Bay Area, aimed at hunting down and deporting more than 1,500 immigrants. San Francisco is one of the sanctuary cities—and the Trump/Pence regime has been stepping up threats and moves against those cities and officials responsible for sanctuary policies. In response, Refuse Fascism, immigrant rights groups, religious forces, and others have been protesting at the ICE facility in San Francisco, including blockading the gates and projecting “GESTAPO” on the building.
West Los Angeles: Hundreds March for Dreamers and All Immigrants Under Attack
February 5, 2018
On Saturday, February 3, several hundred people rallied and marched in West Los Angeles in the Keep the Dream Act Alive March. This action called for “organizations [to] join forces and ask for the Dream Act, a permanent solution to protect the more than 800,000 immigrant youth protected by DACA. Every day without a clean Dream Act in Congress an estimated 122 DACA recipients lose their protection from deportation and their ability to work and drive legally in the United States. That’s 5 every hour and 851 every week. Millions have categorically rejected Trump’s ‘DACA Fix’ proposal which shamelessly uses young immigrants as the bargaining chips to get $25 billion for the border wall, more enforcement and deportations, destroys family unity, and ends diversity visas. We want a humane, moral, practical solution that protects young immigrants from being arrested, detained, and deported.”
Coming in the context of a serious, comprehensive, and escalating assault on immigrant people, this was a welcome action in West LA. There need to be many more of these actions all across the country! Overwhelmingly, those at the march were immigrants, and most of them were young—in their teens and 20s. Many others need to step out now to march and resist in many other ways to act together to stop the Trump/Pence regime’s attacks on immigrants.
NYC March to Trump Building on Wall Street Denounces Attack on Haitians and Others: “Donald Trump, Donald Trump, When We’re Mad, We’re Not Playing”
January 20, 2018
Marching over the Brooklyn Bridge, January 19, 2018
January 19—Hundreds of people, overwhelmingly Haitian immigrants, marched for miles from central Brooklyn, across the Brooklyn Bridge, through lower Manhattan and to the Trump Building on Wall Street, in angry and spirited denunciation of Trump’s racist attack on Haiti and African countries as “shitholes.” In November last year, the Trump/Pence regime cancelled the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) under which about 60,000 people from Haiti, many who came here after the devastating earthquake eight years ago, had been able to live and work in the United States.
There was a palpable sense of determination among the Haitians (and children of Haitian immigrants) in the march that Trump’s assault on them must not stand. Two young women—a Fordham University student and a pediatrician—both said that they were opposed to Trump before, but they took the “shithole” insult “personally” because of their family backgrounds and heritage. Many protesters brought out how the poverty and misery plaguing Haiti today have everything to do with the actual history of domination, invasions, predatory acts, and backing of oppressive regimes by the U.S. and other powers (see the revcom.us article that brings this history alive). And a major theme in the protest was the proud history of Haiti where the first and only successful slave revolution in history took place in 1804.
At points in the march, people broke into exuberant and deeply felt singing of lines in Creole that translate as “Donald Trump, Donald Trump, when we’re mad, we don’t play.” This was to a danceable beat provided by a group of musicians that joined the march with drums and homemade horns.
The organizers of the march, the 1804 Movement for All Immigrants, brought out the common fight of all immigrants and others against Trump. Among the 1804 Movement’s demands are “permanent US residency for all holders of TPS” (aside from Haitians, people from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, among other countries, have had their TPS revoked or threatened) and “an end to all forms of racial profiling and police terror in the US, above all against black and brown people.” Among the chants was a call-and-response saying “Haitians, Mexicans…one fight, one struggle,” repeated with naming Salvadorans, Africans, etc. The rally at the Trump Building included Puerto Rican and Filipino activists and Carl Dix, co-initiator of Refuse Fascism and a representative of the Revolutionary Communist Party, along with Haitian activists.
Carl Dix speaks on January 19 during 1804 Movement for All Immigrants protest. "These vile comments by Donald Trump calling countries around the world shitholes have a genocidal logic."
There was a strong presence of activists from Refuse Fascism (which is a part of the 1804 Movement coalition) in the march, with many in the march taking up “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA” and other Refuse Fascism chants. A Haitian woman artist came with a handmade poster showing a photo of a pig with the face of Trump and the words “Guess Who?” Later in the march, her sign had a sticker on it saying “NO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America!”
On Martin Luther King Day 2018, more than 1,500 immigrants largely from Haiti but also Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic as well as from Africa rallied in Times Square. The high point of the day was the march of over 500 Haitian immigrants and Haitian Americans to New York City’s number one Shithole—Trump Tower. The march was spirited, it was angry, it was rhythmic, and it was beautiful. The night air was filled at times with resounding chants: “FUCK YOU TRUMP!” and “Haitians Are Here to Stay!” There was a sense that people felt this was the last straw. That in the face of Trump’s latest white-supremacist outrage—and threat—the people have had enough. Someone described it as: “You fucked with the wrong people!” There was pride and determination—Haitians standing up and liberating themselves and their humanity from the filth that the Shithole-in-Chief had hurled on them.
Dozens of Jewish Clergy and Activists Arrested in Capital Protest for Dreamers
January 21, 2018
Washington, DC, January 17—More than 80 protesters, many of them Jewish clergy, were arrested in an action demanding protection for some 800,000 young immigrants covered under DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). These immigrants, known as Dreamers, are under threat of deportation as soon as March because of the Trump/Pence regime’s cancellation of DACA.
Activists from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, the Anti-Defamation League, T'ruah and other Jewish organizations sat in concentric circles at the rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building in a civil disobedience protest, until they were arrested and moved away by police. The activists sang protest songs in Hebrew and English.
A statement from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism said in part: “This is no time for business as usual. In the Torah, we are called 36 different ways to love the stranger, the orphan, and the widow. We were strangers in the land of Egypt, and know what it means to be turned away from places we thought of as home.”
One of those arrested, Rabbi Sheldon Lewis from Palo Alto, California, said, ““We spoke up for compassion for the Dreamers, especially out of our own core values and experience. Caring for the marginalized is central for our people.”
ICE Van Blocked by Defiant Protest in LA
February 19, 2018
February 15—Immigrant rights protestors from several groups joined “Koreatown Popular Assembly” in protest of the ICE raids taking place throughout Los Angles, and the nation.
Refuse Fascism’s Michelle Xai rallied the group just prior to the march and subsequent blocking of a Homeland Security van, keeping it from entering the Detention Center in Downtown Los Angeles, California USA.
Hundreds of Students Walk Out of Houston High School to Demand ICE Release Their Classmate
February 16, 2018
Several hundred students walked out of Stephen F. Austin High School in Houston, Texas, February 14, demanding that immigration authorities release Dennis Rivera-Sarmiento, a senior at their school, now in ICE detention.
Immigrant Prisoners and Supporters at Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma on Hunger Strike to Demand End to Inhumane Conditions
February 14, 2018
Immigrants inside ICE’s Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) in Tacoma, Washington, are on hunger strike—and people outside are also staging hunger strikes in support! This action is to stand against the ongoing extreme conditions of isolation, uncertainty, and injustice there against the immigrant prisoners. Those inside report they have been beaten and abused in attempts by authorities to stop the strike.
Lawsuit Demands an End to ICE Targeting of Immigrant Rights Movement Leaders
February 12, 2018
From a reader:
ICE to Use License Plates to
Track Down Immigrants
“Never Again” Is Now!
February 5, 2018
Michael Slate Interview with Ravi Ragbir, Immigrant Activist Leader:
“There is a warfare against the immigrant community”
February 5, 2018
Hundreds Protest at U.S. Capitol to Demand “Clean” Dream Act
February 7, 2018
Protest in Capitol Building, Washington D.C., February 7 Credit: Twitter/@Altochulo
February 7—Hundreds of immigrants and others from different immigrant rights groups filled the rotunda of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC in a civil disobedience action to demand a “clean” Dream Act—protection for young immigrants covered under DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and for all immigrants. About 100 protesters were arrested. Trump’s cancellation of DACA threatens deportation of hundreds of thousands of young undocumented people (“Dreamers”), who were brought to the U.S. as children. The Trump/Pence regime is now dangling possible legalization for these immigrants years down the line, in return for the border wall and stepped-up immigration enforcement, which will further intensify repression against millions of undocumented and all immigrants—and Democratic leaders may agree to this “deal.” The demand for a clean Dream Act opposes such a reactionary “deal.” The protesters raised signs reading “OUR LIVES ARE IN DANGER. PASS THE DREAM ACT NOW.”
Tacoma, Washington: People’s Tribunal Against Persecution of Immigrants
February 5, 2018
Photo: Refuse Fascism SeattleOn Sunday, February 4, there was a People’s Tribunal held at the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) in Tacoma, Washington. It was aimed at the ongoing persecution of immigrants carried out at this institution, with a related important issue at the forefront being the threatened deportation of local immigration activist Maru Mora-Villalpando.
About 200 to 300 people were there, some coming from as far away as Salem, Oregon, and Bellingham, Washington, including college students and other youths.
Harvard Students Protest Top Democrat for Making Immigration “Deal” with Republican-fascists
February 5, 2018
On February 1, around 100 Harvard University students protested against Dick Durbin, one of the top Democratic senators, when he spoke on the campus. Durbin was one of the Democrats who voted in December to end the government shutdown in return for a “promise” from the Republican leadership that the issue of protection for recipients of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals)—undocumented youth who were brought to the U.S. as children—would be taken up at some point. Trump cancelled DACA last year, and hundreds of thousands of “Dreamers” are under threat of deportation. Durbin is co-sponsoring with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham an immigration “reform” bill that would make DACA permanent in return for new attacks on immigrants, like eliminating the visa lottery, and limiting the ability of immigrants to sponsor family members for immigration to the U.S.
According to the Harvard Crimson, protesters carried signs like “We Are Not Your Bargaining Chip” and “The U.S. Government Has Never Protected Us,” and chanted slogans like, “Say it loud, say it clear—immigrants are welcome here!” Some demonstrators “infiltrated” the room where Durbin was speaking and held up protest signs as he spoke. The protest was co-sponsored by some 20 student organizations including Act on a Dream, the Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Women’s Association, and the Harvard College Democrats.
Houston DACA March to “Reclaim Our Humanity”
January 19—Tonight in Houston, 80 people marched through the streets of downtown chanting “Save DACA, No Deal!” and “¡Sin papeles, sin miedo!” (“Without papers, without fear”). The DACA March to Reclaim Our Humanity was organized by FIEL (Familias Inmigrantes y Estudiantes en la Lucha). DACA is Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which was canceled by the Trump/Pence regime, putting 800,000 immigrants who were brought into the U.S. without documents at a young age (known as “Dreamers”) under threat of deportation.
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