February 15, 2017
For the past three weeks, The Working Families Party and allies have been hosting a series of Sunday night calls titled “Ready to Resist.” These calls provide updates on executive actions, responses to these actions, and offer guidance on how citizens can help resist Trump. This week’s call featured Christina Jimenez of United We Dream who spoke about the out of control deportations that began last week.
Jimenez began the call with an overview of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s increased deportations and raids. Specifically, United We Dream is assisting in the resistance of ICE’s increased scrutiny through use of their hotline where callers can report ICE activity that they witness*. This includes everything from traffic stops to home raids. Lately, ICE has been going to people’s homes and claiming to look for a specific person only to arrest everyone in the house who is undocumented.
Furthermore, ICE has been setting up random checkpoints especially in Georgia and the Carolinas. Drivers are stopped and asked to present their citizenship papers, all done via racial profiling. Jimenez went on to relay how deportation agents who support Trump are especially happy under the current administration as they now feel that they have increased freedom to do their job. This “increased freedom” means tearing apart families and deporting individuals who have spent the majority of their life in the United States such as Guadelupe Garcia. For Jimenez, this is especially frightening as the daughter of two undocumented immigrants.
What can we do to fight against the out of control deportation? Here are three actionable items that citizens can take today:
1. Join a local action effort. This could mean creating your own rally, or joining an existing local protest which can be found here. Specifically, the critical demands are for elected officials to stand up to Trump and declare their cities as sanctuary cities in efforts to protect against deportation.
2. Join the Here to Stay Network. This network helps mobilize communities and can be joined online or by texting “here to stay” to 877 877.
3. Jimenez urges people to make the most out of the upcoming Congressional Recess scheduled for February 18-26. During this time, it is imperative to make it known to our elected officials that we do not support raids and deportations. This can be done by contacting the offices of our members of congress, which can be done here.
In closing, Jimenez reiterated the progress that has been made surrounding local grassroots organizing efforts, ranging from airport protests to deleting Uber. “Let us continue in these success stories through our collective resistance.”
* The United We Dream hotline can be reached at 1-844-363-1423