The Humanitarian Crisis and Moral Urgency to Abolish ICE, Close the Concentration Camps, End and Hold Those Responsible For the Reign of Terror

This is an excellent piece written by an immigrant friend of mine who will remain anonymous here. He has long been an amazing activist of the highest integrity, courage, wisdom, and fierce love. His heartfelt writing is so incredibly moving, heartbreaking, horrifying, infuriating. And tragically spot on. I am so freaking mad!

And I join my friend and countless others in the indescribable grief of the profound terror and injustice and brutality being endlessly perpetrated on our immigrant sisters and brothers and people of color across the country.

And the "centrist" neoliberal democrats sicken me, which goes back to when I was protesting Obama, the “Deporter in Chief” of his time. The inhumanity of it all is beyond disturbing, disgusting, and cruel….

I will continue to expose and fight these atrocities in every way possible. And bless my friend and all who are suffering these extreme and criminal injustices, terror, dehumanization, and violence. ― Molly

The Apocalypse Has Already Happened

I don’t talk about this much because of issues of privacy and safety but I have watched quite a few immigrant friends leave the country the past 2 years. It is sad to say but MAGA’s reign of Terror has largely worked.

Many of these friends were legal or were 10 plus years into the legalization process. Some of them had DACA, so technically they were safe from deportation. But everyone knows the score. “Legality” means nothing in the face of a fascist administration that is intent on boosting its deportation numbers as a primary motivation.

I just spoke to a friend with DACA who told me she doesn’t leave the house unless it’s necessary. That is typical in many areas. And once again, DACA folks are “legal.” They shouldn’t have to fear this. But here we are.

For folks who are undocumented, it’s open season and due process is a distant memory. Fully dehumanized.

And now Stephen Miller is in charge. As a long time immigrants rights organizer friend posted yesterday: “They have been taking the gloves off the past 2 years. Now they’re going to be coming at us with brass knuckles.”

So no, I don’t want to hear from incoming Dem politicians that they are “strong on border security and willing to work with Trump.” Some even praised Trump for his “work on the border.”

Praised him.

If you’ve seen the constant brutality, the kidnappings, the family separations, the long languishing in prison of countless folks because of civil law violations, the renditions to countries people don’t belong to (the subsequent torture), etc….and your first move is to talk about his “Democrats now take border security more seriously”, I don’t think there is an organizing strategy that will help you see the rolling humanitarian crisis under way.

This is why we can’t afford the leadership we’ve had: the Schumers, the Jeffries, etc….These centrists are happy to nominally complain about this stuff but the scope of their imagination is better recording of these atrocities.

I’m not someone who believes there is “no difference” between the Parties. Republicans ARE worse; fully co-signing the fascism. But centrist Dems have shown no serious moral urgency, and you can see it in the way they bat away calls to abolish ICE as “silly.”

Honestly, given everything going on, I am not certain I will be able to remain in the country long term. And one of the reasons I have to think about leaving is that it is hard to see a path where the Democratic Party takes this seriously enough to protect our communities in time.

In fact, as I have said before, it is already “too late” for too many who have been disappeared by this regime. The apocalypse has already happened. The intergenerational trauma has been stamped.

I’m going to continue to fight and strategize while I’m here and, as the saying goes, “I believe that we will win.”

But I’m not sure the Dems understand that they are already late to the Fight.

To be clear, some individual Dems have been admirable, heroic even. But they have not gotten the support of the Party in their efforts.

And with Miller with even more power, we are going to need people who are unapologetic in their fight against ICE, not poll watchers afraid of the electorate.

At one of countless protests that I have participated in.