Seeds Will Grow

Cross-posting the following from Rise and Shine, the Pace e Bene team (Source):

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ICE is out of control. Last week, they killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas as he was driving to work. This week, they killed Johan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine in front of his wife and three-year-old daughter. 

ICE is claiming the cars were weaponized. Just like they did after murdering Renee Good in Minneapolis.

ICE said they would halt their car stops. The next day, a man in Florida was struck and killed by a tractor trailer while fleeing from ICE.

Alex Pretti, Keith Porter, Silverio Villegas González, and Ruben Ray Martinez were gunned down by ICE agents. Daphy Michel and Nurul Amin Shah Alam were abandoned by ICE and left to die on frozen streets. At least 22 people have died in ICE’s detention facilities this year from lack of medical attention or under suspicious circumstances. 

Children are being deported without their parents. Children are being left abandoned in cars as their parents are hauled away. Children are coming home to empty houses after their parents are taken by ICE. 

People are being snatched off the streets. People are being arrested at courts as they comply with legal requirements. People have been sent to gulags in El Salvador. People were held in tents in a Florida swamp. People are suffering through extreme heat waves in tents or detention facilities with no air conditioning. People are being held without access to lawyers or family contact. People are being held for months in inhumane detention centers. People are being deported if they go on hunger strike against rotten food. People are being disappeared and sent to unknown locations if they organize work stoppages against forced labor. 

Legislators are being refused entry to detention centers as they try to exercise their constitutional duty of oversight. Mayors are being turned away at the gates. Priests are being refused access to provide spiritual solace. Health inspectors are being shut out.

Protesters outside detention centers are being tear gassed, pepper sprayed, and shot with rubber bullets. Organizers are being indicted for holding megaphones, cursing at agents, and sending emojis in Signal threads. Activists are being imprisoned for decades for moving a box of anti-ICE zines. 

This is not a complete list of ICE’s abuses. Not even close.

ICE is a danger to everyone and needs to be shut down. The entire system—from start to finish—is corrupt, violent, deadly, inhumane, and driven by greed and hatred. ICE should be defunded and dismantled. 

What can we do? 

On July 25, join or hold a vigil with Disappeared in America for immigrants like Lorenzo, Johan, and so many others. Sign up here and use this toolkit.

On July 23, join Indivisible and migrant justice groups to learn more about Immigrant Justice Summer. You can alsoview a recording of last week’s call here and download the Immigrant Justice Summer workbook to practice building the skills, relationships, and infrastructure you need to respond to ICE surges in your community.

Go further. Read 10 Rules of Resistance for ICE Out, an article with 10 key strategies for resisting ICE with examples from local campaigns. Or check out this article by Scot Nakagawa at the Anti-Authoritarian Playbook on “What You Can Do Right Now” regarding immigration.

With the long list of ICE’s abuses, deaths, murders, and human rights violations, no one should be investing in CoreCivic or GeoGroup (two of the major private prison companies running detention centers). No one should be issuing permits to ICE for facilities or signing leases for office space. No one should be aiding ICE in detaining migrants. No one should be cooperating with ICE in any manner.

Remember: many authoritarians have been ousted when people gathered to mourn, protest, and demand answers about missing loved ones. Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina. Catholic Church’s memorials for vanished loved ones in Chile. Demonstrations about state murders in the Philippines. Your grief and outrage have power; your love for humanity has strength. 

Look at this video from Minneapolis on the Fourth of July, when people held a funeral march for the 51 people killed by ICE, carrying signs of candles with victims’ names and mock coffins. Imagine this happening everywhere as we unite to say: ICE Out Everywhere.

In solidarity, 
Rivera, Ken, and the Pace e Bene Team

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HOPE Training—Learn Backfire Basics w/ Sam and Janine

Across the nation, communities are rising into action to make the violent repression of ICE backfire against both the immigration crackdown and the Trump administration. Nonviolent movements start to win when this moment arrives: the regime over-reaches and triggers mass defiance against its abuses. This is the art of making repression backfire. You can learn specific tools and strategies for doing this skillfully at our free HOPE: Harnessing Our Power To Make Political Violence Backfire Training on August 17.  RSVP here>>

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