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Immigration

How Immigration Organizers Are Gearing Up for Another Trump Era 

“It’s inherently a racial justice fight and economic justice fight,” says organizer Silky Shah.

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Part of the Series

“It’s inherently a racial justice and economic justice fight,” says Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network. In this episode, Shah and host Kelly Hayes discuss the threats posed by the incoming Trump administration, how organizers are preparing to defend immigrant communities, and what actions we can take to prepare and respond.

Music by Son Monarcas, Curved Mirror & David Celeste

TRANSCRIPT

Kelly Hayes: Welcome to “Movement Memos,” a Truthout podcast about solidarity, organizing and the work of making change. I’m your host, writer and organizer Kelly Hayes. In our final episode of 2024, we are talking about Donald Trump’s ominous plans for mass deportations and how activists and organizers can prepare and respond. I will be joined today by author and organizer Silky Shah. Silky is the executive director of Detention Watch Network, which is a national coalition building power to abolish immigration detention in the United States. Silky is also the author of Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition. I know that a lot of us are deeply concerned about Trump’s xenophobic agenda, and the dangers our communities will soon face. It’s important to remember in this moment that, however these attacks unfold, we will have the capacity to fight back. As Silky wrote in a recent article for Truthout:

Despite the right-wing capture of the immensely destructive machinery of state, we can mount an effective resistance. And we’ve done it before. Now is the time to build up community networks to defend immigrants and other marginalized communities who will bear the brunt of the attacks from the new administration.

If, after hearing this conversation, you find that you need some guidance about how to get involved, or where to begin with your efforts, we will be including a list of resources in the show notes of this episode.

If you appreciate this podcast, and you would like to support “Movement Memos,” you can subscribe to Truthout’s newsletter or make a donation at truthout.org. You can also support the show by subscribing to “Movement Memos” on Apple or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, or by leaving a positive review on those platforms. Sharing episodes on social media is also a huge help. As a union shop with the best family and sick leave policies in the industry, we could not do this work without the support of readers and listeners like you, so thanks for believing in us and for all that you do. And with that, I hope you enjoy the show.

[musical interlude]

KH: Silky Shah, welcome to “Movement Memos.”

Silky Shah: Thanks so much for having me. It’s great to be here.

KH: How are you doing today?

SS: I am doing okay. About to have a little bit of a break, which I think will be helpful to fortify as we prepare for what’s to come. But yeah, I think I’m doing as well as I can be. I think in a lot of ways, the pre-election moment was unbelievably depressing, and hard, and sort of confusing. And I think in this post-election moment, I’m feeling a lot more like I know what I have to do. There’s a clarity of purpose, and steps, and an approach to take, and I’m sort of ready to get to work. So that’s kind of where I’m at right now.

KH: That really resonates. I am in a similar place, in that, while I am obviously upset about what our communities are up against, I am also really focused on what I know I can do to be useful in these times. And I think that’s so important, because we’re not all going to formulate all of the solutions, and we shouldn’t pressure ourselves to have all of the answers right now. This is a time for learning and planning and figuring out what we can contribute. And like you, I also have a break coming up soon. This is actually our last episode of the year, and I am so glad that you were available to talk, because I know that a lot of people are really anxious about Trump’s mass deportation plans, and wondering what we can do to support and protect our neighbors. I know you are very busy right now, tending to that work, so I want to thank you so much for making the time, amid everything that’s happening, to join me today.

SS: I’m a really big fan of this podcast and your work, so really honored to be here.

KH: Well, coming from you, that means a lot.

Before we dive in, could you take a quick moment to introduce yourself and tell the audience a little bit about your work?

SS: So my title is executive director of Detention Watch Network, which is a national coalition building power to abolish immigration detention in the U.S. We’ve been around since the late ’90s after there were some really harsh immigration bills that had passed, and over the years we have evolved. And now our network of organizations across the country, over 100 organizations doing both local grassroots organizing to end detention and also policy work, advocacy work at the state level and federal level. We work with people who have formerly been detained and their loved ones, and do a lot of capacity building. And we also do a lot of narrative work around these issues. And so that’s the range of stuff that we do.

I’ve been organizing around prison issues, prison-industrial complex issues, and immigration for over 20 years now. I’m from Texas and I started organizing around these issues in the aftermath of 9/11 when there was this sort of prison boom happening, especially at the border. And at the time, sort of referred to as a criminal justice advocate or organizer, but actually so much of the work I was doing was trying to stop new jails and prisons that were meant for immigrants in the post-9/11 aftermath. And so that’s how I started doing this work. A lot of work to stop expansion over the years, and in moments when we’ve had some openings, actually doing a lot of work to shut down existing detention centers. And yeah, that’s a bit about me.

KH: So, obviously, many of us are deeply concerned about Trump’s mass deportation agenda. A lot of people have been asking me what we should expect and what we should be doing to prepare. So let’s start by talking about what we should expect. What do we know and not know about what’s about to happen with regard to immigration, and how do you expect Trump’s policies to differ from those of previous administrations?

SS: So there’s a lot we know, and like you said, there’s a lot we don’t know. In terms of what we do know is that the way that immigration enforcement has worked in moments when there have been really large-scale deportations of people currently living in the U.S., it’s often happened through the criminal legal system. And it’s happened through relationships between local sheriffs and the federal government. There’s this sort of symbiotic relationship where actually the way the federal government operates both in terms of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Marshals Service is by outsourcing a lot of their detention capacity to local jails and then of course private prisons, which gets a lot more attention. But often these local counties have a stake in whatever type of contract, whether it’s a county jail or private prison.

And local sheriffs are also often or have been in the past deputized to be immigration enforcers through a program called 287(g) that came about in the ’90s and was implemented after 9/11. And right now, actually a lot of the 287(g) programs that exist happen through jail enforcement, really only happens at the jail level. But we could see under Trump a sort of re-implementation of local police who are in the field having immigration authority, which is a huge concern.

And so much of the way that the deportation pipeline has worked is that people are caught up in a lot of different ways, whether they are stopped for driving without a license or a tail light, or they are arrested for a crime and are in the booking process at the jail, and there is an ICE hold put on them. They might be in the jail awaiting trial and they might interact with an ICE agent who works at the jail and [who] has a conversation with them, and sort of determines their immigration status and proceeds to put them into immigration proceedings after they go through their hearing or potentially after a sentence.

So there’s just a lot of different moments in the process of interacting with the criminal legal system where somebody could be turned over to ICE. And of course, for most, what we’re seeing right now is that people who currently live in the U.S. who are in immigration detention often are people who have had a criminal conviction, a criminal record, they’ve been in jail or in prison, and then after completing a sentence being turned over to ICE. And that is a large portion of who is in jail — people who’ve been out of community to some degree. And so I think that something to understand is that so much of this is about how different law enforcement agencies interact and ICE is really, really highly dependent on local and local police to carry out the deportation process, which I can talk more about how we can throw a wrench in that. But that’s what we know. We know that that’s going to be a big part of the way this happens.

In terms of the other things we know and they’ve already sort of indicated is a massive expansion of the detention system. In the first Trump term, we saw basically detention go up to a height of 55,000 beds, a capacity to hold 55,000 people at any given time. And over the course of 2019, we had half a million people go through the detention system. Sometimes, people will be in detention for two weeks, sometimes 30 days. For people who are appealing the case or can’t be returned, they could spend months or years in detention, or they’re awaiting a hearing on their case. And so it’s really a range. But we anticipate an expansion, and already ICE under Biden is expanding detention in New Jersey and put out proposals to expand detention in the Midwest, in the Southwest, on the West Coast.

And so we know that ICE is already planning to expand. And with the sort of political will under Trump, we could see a lot more expansion. Potentially, I think what they’re hoping for is a doubling of the detention capacity, which is roughly around 40,000 right now. So those things we know.

I think the thing that’s really going to be different between Trump and previous administrations — and this is sort of the difference between the Democrats and Republicans at this stage, especially since the second Obama term — is that for a long time, immigration enforcement, the deportation machine and the way it operated in the U.S. and of people who are currently living here (already here, not necessarily at the border), it happened through the criminal legal system like I said, but it also happened through raids and potentially large raids, worksite raids. Some famous ones happened in Mississippi and Iowa. Often they’re in the Southeast and Midwest.

And they’re really just incredibly disruptive. Hundreds of people in a community being taken all at once, many of whom are parents who are separated from their children. Children sometimes ending up in foster care because of them. People getting charged around their immigration violations, but sometimes also being prosecuted for immigration violations. So they might have both a civil immigration proceeding and a criminal proceeding at the same time. People will end up in jail for months, sometimes longer. And it really can fully destroy a community and have long-term impacts.

And so I think that is probably the big sort of difference that you might see. The worksite raids are something that the Obama administration really moved away from, because of a lot of concerns around the impacts, and it sort of resulted in the Obama administration really more closely tying the criminal legal system and immigration system together.

Under Trump, they try to do a lot of these, all the things and the worksite raids. And then under Biden we have seen — both because of a lot of wins, which I can talk about in sanctuary policy and affirmative relief, and also because of this hyperfocus on the border — there’s been less raids and attention to focusing on targeting people within the interior of the country.

So I think that’s the big difference. I think ultimately, one of the things that we were able to do, especially with the level of mass deportations that were happening under Obama where it was rampant, and hundreds and thousands of people in community were being taken each year, it became politically unpopular. And I think that’s the big difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. The way the Dems have approached this has very much been through the criminal legal system in this “good immigrant versus bad immigrant” frame, whereas the Republicans are very much in let’s just target everyone, and everyone is perceived as a problem, and all immigrants are scapegoated in this way. And so both the raids and the criminal legal system strategies are in place.

And that’s a lot of what we know is going to happen: It’s going to be large-scale raids that are going to be a spectacle and a lot of law enforcement targeting community members. There’s been a lot of talk about the role of the military and the use of the National Guard, which has happened to some degree. But I think right now, that’s harder to say what scale that’s going to be at, and also the use of military bases for detention. I think those are things that are a little… Again, I think it’s going to be a lot of spectacle, but it’s hard to say at what scale that’s going to be and how that’s going to look.

I think sometimes, there’s this perception that the military is not [already] involved. I mean, when you look at the U.S.-Mexico border, it’s one of the most militarized borders in the world. And the border has been even more militarized, especially since the Clinton era.

And a lot of border patrol see that they’re kind of this cross between soldier and cop. There is this sort of sense of “protecting the homeland” through immigration enforcement. So I think yes, absolutely there’s a deep connection there and a lot of it’s already so militarized.

But I do think … some of this is dependent on the role that states will have in deploying the National Guard. And I think in so many of these instances there’s sort of a question of whether governors are willing to work with Trump or not. And places like Texas, we already know there’s been a deployment of the National Guard, and there’s no question that Gov. Greg Abbott is going to continue to really push that sort of “invasion” rhetoric and other things to push for more military use.

So yeah, I have a lot of concerns around that and I worry about the spectacle around it. But in terms of the scale of what is going to happen, I really do believe that the place where they have the ability to round up people in the easiest way is through the criminal legal system, and we have to continue to also really throw wrenches in that process.

KH: I really agree, and I think a lot of what we’re going to see, especially early on, is going to look like policing. In some ways, that’s really concerning, because this system has done an excellent job of getting people to ignore the violence of policing, and to forget about people who are disappeared under the banner of criminalization, so we’re going to have to address that in our organizing.

So, how are immigration rights activists and organizers preparing for what’s ahead? Given the rightward lurch of the Democrats, it feels like it’s going to be very much on us at a grassroots level to wage this fight.

SS: Yeah, it is definitely going to be on us. I think like I was saying before, I think what was hard about the pre-election moment was that in all my years of doing this work and knowing that the Democrats and the Republicans have both built these systems that we’re trying to fight, I was just alarmed at how far to the right the Democrats moved and how much they really abandoned any sort of pro-immigrant stance.

So I worry about that, but I also know that we gained a lot of ground to stop those rampant deportations under the Obama administration through sanctuary policy, through those efforts to stop the use of the criminal legal system to target immigrant communities. And so I think that’s going to continue to be a really core place where we can put up a firewall or some way to prevent targeting of communities. And it’s been really successful in places like California, and Illinois, and New Jersey that have really large immigrant populations.

So, I think that’s going to be really key. The way that we’ve been sort of preparing is looking at those sanctuary policies in different places and figuring out how to make them more robust and also defending them. I mean, Tom Homan, who is really going to be leading this effort around mass deportations, has said that he wants to go after sanctuary policy. And so really doing everything we can to ensure that governors in those states that have passed those laws, and also attorneys general, there is a lot of work happening at the state level to prevent stripping of those policies.

And then making them more robust. I mean, you have a lot of sanctuary policies in place that have carve outs and that still push this who’s “deserving” and who’s “undeserving,” the “good immigrant versus bad immigrant” frame of if you have a certain type of conviction, or if you are X, Y, Z you should not benefit from these sanctuary policies. And trying to show that actually no, we need to really fight for everyone in this moment. I think it’s going to be really important.

I think I have a lot of concerns about those places, like Texas and Florida, Louisiana, Georgia — places where it’s going to be harder to make the case. And there’s also a lot less resources, and these are the places where you’re more likely going to see those worksite raids, or community sweeps, or courthouse arrests, or other types of raids happen and not have the same type of legal support available or investment in organizing and community support. And also, you’re having Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton, these individuals who are really ready to work with Trump and sort of doing everything they can to terrorize immigrant communities in those places.

And so I worry about that, but we are also organizing a lot across those straits. And this is one of the strategies that I think has been so important, especially since the Obama era where it was an opportunity to learn from each other. And a lot of the work that we do at Detention Watch Network is sort of bring these communities across the country together who have similar political conditions and strategize the ways we can stop some of these new bills going into effect.

So really looking at January to May of next year when state legislative sessions are in place and trying to make sure we can do what we can to stop these new bills from going into effect. I think that’s going to be really important.

And I think in the long run, there’s so much need to actually invest and build in those communities where it is that much harder. And so I think that that’s going to be a really big part of our fight.

So a lot of our preparation has basically been making sure people can get whatever they can in order prior to January 20, doing a lot of know-your-rights presentations, making sure people have the information that they need in various languages. A lot of movement calls on some of these lessons around sanctuary policies and defensive state fights, and also site fights against detention expansion. We’ve been doing this for many, many years, and there’s a lot of incredible strategies that have been employed to prevent expansion.

I know you’re in Illinois, which is, I think, one of the most phenomenal fights of Whac-A-Mole I’ve ever seen against the expansion of detention. ICE has been trying to build a large immigrant detention facility in the Midwest for years near the Chicago field office and has been really unsuccessful because of the incredible organizing there. And so I think there’s a lot of people who are ready to stop the expansion that they’re proposing.

KH: Yes, we have had a lot of great organizing here in Illinois. I want to give a shout out to Organized Communities Against Deportations, and all of the abolitionist organizers here in Chicago, who have a proud tradition of resisting carceral expansion and working to empty cages in our state.

But I am also thinking about the challenges we’re facing here, on the immigration front. Chicago is a sanctuary city, but that is a designation that has become less popular in recent years. Governor Abbott’s Operation Lone Star has been tremendously successful, in terms of shifting public opinion by busing tens of thousands of migrants into sanctuary cities like Chicago to overwhelm our public services and really make people question how welcoming we want our city to be. It’s been hard to watch that sort of erosion of values happen, but the damage is real.

So, as you talk about the kind of work that’s happening and the kind of work that’s necessary, I am also thinking about the support we have to build and rebuild, in places that have sanctuary protections in place, to ensure that work doesn’t unravel.

I know a lot of people are thinking in really concrete terms right now, in terms of what resisting raids might look like, and are imagining the work of putting our bodies on the line to stop ICE from taking our neighbors — and we could be called upon to do that. But there’s also a lot of less action-packed work that’s going to have to be done, if we want to build support for the policies we believe in, and if we want more of our neighbors to be invested in our values.

SS: I think prior to the election, one of the things I was saying a lot is that a lot of people were focused on Trump, but they were not recognizing that Abbott and other Texas officials have been sort of running the game on immigration policy these last several years. And Abbott’s strategy of the busing of migrants to sanctuary cities and the bringing the border to New York, and Chicago, and Denver really, I mean, it was incredibly effective. And it was partially incredibly effective because the Biden administration failed to intervene and failed to do anything to really support those people who were being bused, and that exacerbated [the strain on] all those social safety nets in these communities and created all these tensions.

And I think that what’s so challenging is that the scapegoating has been so successful, but actually really kind of being clear about who has power here and who is failing us, which in that moment really felt like the federal government and the Biden administration failing to provide those resources to those communities really exacerbated everything.

And so I think in this moment when there is still a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment, we have to do that political education and make sure, like you said, [we are] working within communities. So much of this is about going local and trying to figure out what it is, what we’re trying to protect to better our communities as a whole, which includes not just immigrants, but everybody. And there’s been so much othering, but actually doing that work to say: No, we are all in community together and actually our fight for labor rights, our fight for health care and education are actually tied together. It’s not unique to one community.

I think all those things, and obviously, the housing crisis — there’s so much that immigrants are blamed for. But with that sort of political education and that work that really goes local, I think that’s the way we can break through some of that.

KH: I really appreciate what you were saying about scapegoating, and remembering who has power. Trump’s political narrative is wholly reliant on scapegoating, and we have to rebel against that messaging. And that rebellion has to grow. We desperately need more people.

Rather than recognizing that the Harris strategy failed — that simply trying to put a more reasonable face on a right-wing border agenda is not going to redirect this country’s xenophobic energy in favor of the Democratic Party — the Democrats are going to double down. We have to build culture, power and momentum behind the idea that the folks at the border, and the migrants in our community, are our people, too, and they’re being victimized by the same forces that are victimizing us. We need to help people recognize that while it’s true that we’re all getting screwed, immigrants are not the enemy. We’re all getting screwed because we live in a mafia state where billionaires are going to become trillionaires while they dismantle our futures and sell off the parts.

So, taking into account that we have some experience with Trump, could you say more about what immigration organizers learned from dealing with the first Trump administration? What tactics actually helped curb deportations and what tactics should maybe be left in the past?

SS: Well, some of what I already talked about was able to be that much more effective whenever Trump came into office. So those sanctuary policies. I mean, a lot of it was starting to move in the Obama years. But actually once Trump came into office, a lot of that “good immigrant versus bad immigrant” frame, the Democrats weren’t as beholden to it as they were prior to Trump coming into office.

So we were able to move sanctuary policy in really, really incredible ways and so many more states passed sanctuary bills. And then also since then, we’ve seen seven states pass anti-detention bills in some form or another.

So that continues to be an important strategy. And I do think it’s going to be harder this time around, and there’s a lot of ground we’re going to have to regain. But I still think that that is going to be a really, really important site of struggle. And also not just state level, but also county level and city level, and making sure that your city, and county, and municipality isn’t collaborating with ICE. What are all the different ways you can make sure ICE isn’t in your community? I think that is something that we have more power over. It’s our local community. It’s where we live, and we can work with others on it.

I think one of the other pieces, and I write about this a bit in my book, Unbuild Walls, was that there, early on Trump pushed, and many, many people have talked about this — they will need a lot of money and a lot of resources to carry out the mass deportations.

And so early on in the first Trump term, we saw there was a lot of push for the border wall. The border wall really defined the campaign and that became the symbol. But in addition to getting money for the border wall, they were also trying to get money for more detention beds, and more ICE agents, and more border patrol agents.

And so what we did was launch a campaign called Defund Hate, which actually was trying to get members of Congress to agree to cuts in funding to ICE and Customs and Border Protection and DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] generally.

And up until this point, a lot of Democrats perceived more funding for ICE as a good thing, because that meant that they could treat people in detention better. And this was a moment we were able to kind of disrupt that idea and say, No, they’re just going to expand beds or not. Conditions are just terrible and they’re going to stay terrible. These are jails and prisons that are used for detention. They are what they are, and we actually just need to make sure people aren’t in them. That’s the best way to protect people.

And so I think the defund strategy was really effective in that time also because it was a similar case. There was a Republican trifecta, which meant the presidency in addition to the House and Senate were Republican-led. And the Democrats had some leverage because in order to get a funding bill passed, you need to have the Democrats to agree to something.

And so that gave us some leverage, and we were able to block over that time some $15 billion, [an] additional $15 billion in funding that Trump had requested and the Republicans had requested. And so I think this is going to be harder this time around, but I do continue to think funding appropriations, the way that funding works for all the things that they want to carry out, is going to be a really important way for us to stop them from carrying out the mass deportations.

In terms of other strategies, I do think legal support and litigation was essential, but I think one challenge of that era was that there was a lot of “outsourcing” of the resistance to lawyers. This is something that abolitionist scholar Derecka Purnell has talked about. There was this element of, okay here, they just put up this Muslim ban or there’s this family separation policy. Let’s just make sure everybody has a lawyer, or there is a litigation strategy and the ACLU is on board.

And I’m not arguing that any of those things are bad. It’s great. Those are things we absolutely need. But I think it failed to understand that we actually need ordinary people to take actions and to be a part of the community resistance around this and start to build power. Because if we just kind of perceive this as a legal fight, we’re missing actually that these institutions don’t operate in a vacuum. We actually have to have organizing, movement building that helps us get to a different place.

And so I really do feel like this time around, we have to really commit to that base building, that work that we do that for the long term and really think about our work not just now, but five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now. I think these moments lead us a lot towards being very reactive. And so I want us to really think long-term and visionary in how we’re building.

I think the other thing I would say was the challenge of that moment is that so much of the framework really leaned into this innocent, vulnerable population thing — especially around the family separation moment — this is what’s happening to children. This is what’s happening to families.

And look, this is so extreme, what they’re doing in terms of family separation, but failed to realize that… something you and I and anybody who’s working against the prison-industrial complex knows is that all incarceration is family separation, all policing and deportation is family separation. And it’s what we see in the system over and over again.

And so really trying to make those connections instead of saying this is a policy that is unique and out of bounds. It’s like, no, this is actually how the system operates in general. And so I think that we need to … It’s a real opportunity, especially in a moment where there’s a move towards authoritarianism and fascism. The way these systems operate is through using prisons, and jails, and police to control people. And we have to have a bigger understanding of that and a broader understanding of that. And so those are some things that I hope that we can really keep as a foundational understanding as we tackle this new terrain.

KH: Radical movements have lost a lot of ground in this movement. What do you think it looks like to continue to advance our political vision around abolition and a world without borders amid the backlash our movements have experienced and the rampant anti-immigrant sentiment that has taken hold in the U.S.?

SS: I think we have to make sure that we’re not, like I said before, being reactive and being in a place of complacency or fear. But really understand that in moments like these, where the veneer has been stripped off, and we know what these systems are, and we know how those in power are going to use them, that we actually, especially at the local level, have a lot of power to protect our communities and both do that through the organizing we do locally, but also build for the long term, build communities of resistance. Build so that in those moments at some point when we do have opportunity for hopefully more significant change, we’re ready for them.

So I think that’s how I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking about it as a time when, despite the backlash and despite all the ways Democrats have faltered and even parts of the movement have faltered, those of us who are working against the prison-industrial complex and working against immigration enforcement and deportation can really offer a vision, offer a strategy, offer an approach and a lens through abolition that is going to help us bring more people in and help us get closer to our goals hopefully in the long term.

KH: You’ve talked about the need for local, community-level work. Can you describe what you think some of that looks like? Recently, I talked with someone who has been politicized for many years who told me, “I don’t think I really know what base building is.” So, could you take a moment to describe for people, who may not be familiar with all the ins and outs of organizing, what some of the on-the-ground work that needs to happen is going to look like in the coming months and years?

SS: I think there’s a lot of different layers of work that need to happen, but it is funny how much being an organizer for many, many years, I get that question a lot: what actually is organizing? It seems like the sort of nebulous term for folks, and I can kind of understand that, but I also think sometimes it seems harder than it is because of that.

And a lot of it is really building relationships in community and figuring out what it is you want to accomplish and then figuring out the strategies of how you’re going to accomplish it. Determining who has power in your community to change things, and then building power to influence those sets of stakeholders.

And so I think on the base building piece, it really depends on what you’re focused on and what you’re trying to do. But for us, for instance, and I was talking about defund earlier, one of the things that we’ve seen communities do and we’ve worked with communities on is this question of, well, let’s understand that a lot of times a community will have a carceral economy and there’ll be this sort of fear of losing a detention center because you’re going to lose jobs and you’re going to lose some revenue from the federal government and other things. But also then having a conversation, well like, well, what investments do you want? What are the things that matter to you? What are the things that you want to build in your community in terms of education and health care, or housing, or all the other needs that a community might have? And how can this divestment from a carceral economy give some space for different forms of building in community?

So actually talking to community members about what are the needs of the community, and what are the things that are harming those needs, and how can we shift the thinking there on this sort of question. And that’s just sort of broader work to do in community. I think we’re all trying to figure out how to create better conditions for ourselves, and our neighbors, and all the people that we are in community with.

But I think on this question of the deportations, a lot of it is figuring out places where ICE might do community sweeps or keeping ICE out of certain sensitive locations. If you are in a state that has some sanctuary policy, really looking at that sanctuary policy. Often there’s going to be a group doing that work in your community already. Seeing how you can support them. What does that look like?

Whether there is door knocking involved, or getting petition signatures, or doing an action at the State House or targeting particular senators, etc., at the state level, there’s a lot of different strategies. Going to your county council meetings. I mean, oftentimes it’s like having somebody who’s there regularly to see what’s coming up on the agenda, know what’s coming up. Oh, there might be an intention of going into a new contract with ICE for an intergovernmental service agreement for a new ICE contract. When is that coming up? What is the work you need to do before that happens? And so I think there’s a lot of that.

There’s also, I mean, you might not be somebody who necessarily is going to door-knock, but maybe you have graphic design skills or maybe you can write or do other things. There’s a lot of different roles we can all play or you can do phone banking. There’s so many different roles in having that ability, and in knowing what your capacity is I think is really important and how you can play a role.

And if you’re struggling to have the capacity and time, I think money is also really important in this context. I mean, with people getting caught up in the detention system, having robust bond funds in communities and around the country are going to be essential to getting people out so they can get the support that they need not while in detention. So those are just some things. There’s a lot of different things people can do.

And I will say on the point I was making earlier about defund and preventing Trump from getting all these resources, and I think it feels kind of trite to be like, “Just call your member of Congress.” But the truth is it does actually have impact. I mean, I think we got something like 300,000 signatures to prevent funding for one of the supplemental requests in 2017 or 2018. And so I think that kind of stuff actually can have an impact on preventing a few more billion dollars, which actually can count for a lot.

KH: So this is a difficult moment for a lot of us, and I’m wondering, what questions or critiques are you grappling with as we ready ourselves for a new stage of struggle?

SS: I think I’m struggling a lot with, like I’ve talked about already, the collapse of the movement and the Democrats in this Biden era, and just how much in 2020 we saw some of the most bold demands and vision I had seen in my many years of doing this work, and how quickly it retreated for both the Democrats and some of the moderate parts of the movement.

And it’s been interesting the last few weeks seeing some of those same groups or entities having all of a sudden better analysis because of the shift in the political conditions. And so I think that’s tough.

And I also think in general — for me as somebody who has spent much of my adult life fighting these systems and really making the case for those people who are perceived as disposable, perceived as not worthy of certain rights, and having been labeled a “bad immigrant” — reckoning with the fact that actually my work and the work that we do at Detention Watch Network was that much harder in the context of there being this sort of abandonment of any pro-immigrant stance or even this idea of fighting for immigrants at all.

I mean for a long time, the Democrats were on the surface at least saying something that was pro-immigrant, even if they were doing all these horrible things. And now to be in this place where they weren’t even doing that, I think I’m really struggling and feeling like so much of what we’re negotiating is a symptom of a larger problem in the decay of any sort of real political leadership and vision.

And so we have to depend on ourselves. We have to depend on our communities. And I think trying to really hold on to that and recognizing we can’t do it all. But like I said before, there’s this sort of clarity of what we’ve seen. And once you see this pendulum happen over and over again, I think we have a lot of lessons to learn. And I want to make sure that this time around, that surface-level engagement around immigration, we do the work to break through some of that and show how actually this is kind of connected to everything. It’s about everything.

And a lot of people have made the case that at least immigration is perceived as this side issue. And it’s like, no, this is the sort of slippery slope around the descent into fascism. And we really have to not sort of do the other or separate thing but actually fight for everyone. And I think this is the argument I make a lot within our work in the immigrant rights, immigrant justice movement, is immigrants have to be perceived as very exceptional or very productive and all these different things, and better than everyone, and so many of the arguments that are made … [like] immigrants commit less crimes than U.S. citizens, without recognizing that they’re reinforcing this idea that immigration is connected to public safety or immigrants are better than everyone else. And it’s like, no, we have to stop doing this.

This is actually, so much of what is happening on this issue is just a center of a larger problem, and how do we reckon with that and do better? And so I think I’m grappling with that. I’m grappling with how much more we need to do that political education and also really bridge across movement.

KH: How can we build more connective tissue between our movements, between struggles against prisons and policing, antiwar efforts, and movements against the violence of borders and empire?

SS: I mean, I think we are to some degree. And a lot of the goal I had in writing my book on Unbuild Walls was to kind of really push this understanding that our fight for immigrant justice was sort of inherently tied to the fight for prison abolition. And it’s inherently a racial justice fight, and racial and economic justice fight. And I think that’s something that the movement evolved around.

But one of the other areas I think the immigrant rights movement has really failed to embrace, especially in the context of this pro-American stance, is not being really an anti-imperialist movement, not really having an understanding of U.S. empire and the role that it has played in the conditions that we’re in and the reason why people are fleeing to the U.S. in the first place.

And I think when we look back to the sanctuary movement of the 1980s, there was so much more of an internationalist lens and approach to that work. And I think in this last year around solidarity with Palestine, there’s been more opening to make those connections, which I think has been really critical.

So I think that bridge between both happens in telling those stories, and making the connections, and really understanding that Gaza is a laboratory for a lot of the systems of control that we’re seeing at the U.S.-Mexico border, that U.S. jails and prisons are the sites of immigration enforcement, and those connections are there, and fighting similar sort of entities.

And when you look at the question around divestment, so much of the money that the U.S. spends goes to the military and also to DHS and law enforcement. And so trying to make those connections, and I think that’s actually been a really key place of trying to connect with groups that are fighting U.S. militarism.

So I think those are some key strategies that we can utilize, but I really do feel like it’s that question of: How do we as a movement fighting against deportation not just embrace a racial and economic justice lens, but also an anti-imperialist lens?

KH: I really appreciate that question, and I think that we’re going to have to continue to complicate our analysis on all of our fronts of struggle. Because it’s really easy to oversimplify our concerns in moments of urgency, and we really have to resist the kind of simplicity, in our arguments, that divides us up for disposal.

Well, we’ve covered a lot of ground and there’s so much more we could discuss, but before we end today, I want to ask, is there anything else you would like to share with or ask of the audience right now?

SS: Detention Watch Network, like I said, we have over 100 organizational members across the country. And so if somebody is interested in getting involved in organizing against detention and deportation in their community, they can go to our website and look at our member directory and see if there is an organization in your community. And if there’s not, reach out to us. And if you’re looking to build something, we have a lot of resources on strategies to fight locally, some things that you can do. A lot of educational resources.

So I think I would really recommend the best way, and as we’ve been talking about in this whole conversation, is to really go local and think about the different entities, and their relationship with ICE, and the detention centers in your community or the potential sites of expansion in your community and find other people to do this work with. I think so much of this next four years is going to be about us finding our people and making sure we have community to keep us going, and hold us accountable, and do all the things to make sure that we build for the long term.

KH: Well, I want to thank you so much for joining me for this conversation. I learned a lot, and as someone who deeply respects your work, Silky, I am just so grateful to be in the struggle with you.

SS: Thank you so much, Kelly. I feel like so many of us have been so inspired and fortified by your work. So really grateful to be a part of this conversation with you and grateful to be in community.

[musical interlude]

KH: Well, I hope you all found this conversation as useful and grounding as I did. As I mentioned at the top of the show, we will be including a list of resources in the show notes for folks who want to get more involved. This is a multi-pronged fight, and there are a lot of layers of work to invest in.

If you live in an area that has sanctuary policies in place, your efforts might involve building renewed support for those policies and pressuring lawmakers to maintain them — and expressing support for those who do. One of the very real risks of this moment is that Democratic mayors and governors could buckle under federal pressure. Tom Homan, who Trump has named as his incoming “border czar,” has promised that federal funds will be withheld from states that do not cooperate with Trump’s mass deportation plans. We don’t know what those financial reprisals will look like, but given Trump’s efforts to resurrect impoundment — a long-restricted presidential maneuver to seize the power of the purse from Congress — the administration could be planning to target funds for health care, transportation, disaster relief, and more. We don’t know how those efforts will play out. Personally, I am worried that some Democratic mayors and governors might actually be eager to capitulate, if Trump’s attacks can provide plausible political cover. Operation Lone Star has cost sanctuary cities hundreds of millions of dollars. Some Democratic officials might be tempted to cooperate with anti-immigrant policies that target new arrivals, or that prevent migrants from reaching their cities. It will be up to us to deepen our communities’ investment in sanctuary policies, and to make Democratic leaders recognize that there’s a cost to abandoning those policies.

We also need to create the kinds of groups and formations that can respond to community needs when our neighbors are under attack. In addition to the resources featured in the show notes of this episode, Silky and I both recommend checking out Dean Spade’s book, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next). While I know people are probably inclined to focus on what hands-on action looks like, right now, the first step in any meaningful course of action is going to be to find our people, and to organize ourselves strategically, according to our shared values. This is a time to think deeply about what organizations to support and learn from, and about how to make decisions together effectively in small, dynamic groups.

Lastly, I just want to mention that while the current moment may feel bleak, political conditions can transform quickly. The work we put in, when the drumbeat of change feels distant or even absent, will have short-term and long-term impacts, all of which will be important. Catalyst moments, when the political terrain shifts beneath our feet, and the impossible suddenly feels attainable, come without warning. Such moments can flicker and burn out quickly, but they can also foster transformative change. As Silky writes in Unbuild Walls:

Catalyst moments usually come about when something happens that challenges our idea of what is right and just, something that goes so far beyond the bounds of what is acceptable that we must express outrage and do something in response. Often, their staying power and ability to create change depend on how prepared our movements are when these catalysts happen.

We have a lot of work ahead, and I am grateful for the opportunity to think and work alongside so many committed people who refuse to give up on each other, or on what the world could be, if we fight for it.

Well, that’s a wrap for “Movement Memos” this year. I want to thank our listeners and readers for supporting the show, and for all that you do to make this world a more just place. I know this is a scary time. There is a lot of uncertainty, and not knowing what’s going to happen, or exactly what we should do about it, is hard. But no one person or group will concoct a winning blueprint. Collective survival and social transformation will not be produced by a singular project. There will be many efforts, unfurling all around us. Figure out what you can give and where you fit in. Find your people and do your part. That’s what you’re responsible for: your part. So, let’s find our work, find our people, and face the storms ahead together.

“Movement Memos” will be back in February 2025, and I am looking forward to talking about how we can fight for each other and for this world in the new year.

For now, I want to thank our listeners for joining us today, and remember, our best defense against cynicism is to do good, and to remember that the good we do matters. Until next time, I’ll see you in the streets.

Show Notes

Organizing resources:

Books:

Further reading:

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