A mass movement defending immigrants has slowed the Trump administration’s abuses
Resistance, in physics, is the force that hinders the flow of charged electrons as they zigzag from point to point. Resistance doesn’t stop the flow of electricity. Instead, it causes heat.
Popular resistance works the same way. It obstructs and slows the government’s business, creating political heat and slowing it further.
That’s what is happening to Trump’s mass deportation campaign. It started with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arresting a few international students who protested against the Gaza war. Then the masked men began ambushing migrants in courthouse hallways after routine check-ins and mandated status proceedings. Court watchers led by immigrants’ rights advocates and lawyers showed up to bear witness and offer aid.
Before long, ICE and border patrol agents were roving the streets of Washington DC, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon, and other blue cities, indiscriminately scooping up brown, Black and non-English-speaking people, busting down doors without warrants and escalating confrontations with protesters.
In response, the small cadres of immigrants’ rights advocates were morphing into a mass movement of immigrant defense. Along with community groups and progressive organizations, they organized hyper-local rapid response teams, established hotlines and encrypted mobile-app chatgroups, developed ICE tracker software, printed know-your-rights cards in many languages, distributed whistles and taught responders the code – repeated short blasts for “ICE in the area”; long blows for “form a crowd, stay loud” – as well as protocols for nonviolent protest and usable documentation of the government’s abuses.
By the time “Operation Metro Surge” hit Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota, residents were primed to fight back. From houses and stores, in cars and on bicycles, people of every age, race and political stripe dogged ICE wherever it went. The protesters wore inflatable animal costumes, flak jackets and parkas heavy enough to brave weather so cold it froze the ink in reporters’ pens. They withstood teargas, police batons and arrests. And when agents fatally shot two US citizens in January, cellphone videographers were there to record the killings – and disseminate the images around the world on social media.
Public opinion swung decisively against Trump, the then homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, and “commander at large” Greg Bovino. The government was forced to retreat.
Bovino was dispatched into early retirement and replaced by the less flamboyantly fascistic “border czar” Tom Homan. Trump announced he would no longer send federal troops to intervene in anti-ICE protests. He pretended to be tired of elected officials’ griping and predicted they would soon beg for help: “They have to say: ‘Please.’” But he hadn’t pulled back until those officials – Minnesota’s attorney general and the Twin Cities’ mayors – sued over ICE’s unconstitutional actions during the surge.
Soon Noem was out on her ear. In confirmation hearings, the new DHS chief, Markwayne Mullin, promised to require judicial warrants to enter homes or businesses.