Updated November 14, 2025.

[En Español.]

As Trump and MAGA increasingly seek to consolidate fascist control over the federal government, we are seeing the severe repression of immigrants. We must organize immediately to counter these repressive policies and executive actions.

Consider the following actions of Trump and MAGA since the beginning of 2025:

• Efforts to take away Birthright Citizenship
• Increasingly violent, sweeping immigration raids by masked, unidentified agents detaining and deporting thousands. The majority of those taken away have no criminal record despite the fact that Trump campaigned on detaining and deporting “criminals.” Courts are allowing profiling on the basis of racial and economic status in order to increase the numbers of people being deported.
• Sending National Guard and federal troops or agents to Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Portland to meet his goal of arresting 3,000 immigrants daily, in spite of the opposition of state and local leaders. This is a blatant violation of the U.S. constitution, which prohibits the federalization of the state national guard for law enforcement unless there is an insurrection. None exists. Trump also plans to send the military to other cities — eg. in Chicago, New Orleans, Boston, and Memphis — and has threatened cities and states with “sanctuary” policies, working hard to increase cooperation agreements between ICE and local law enforcement.
• Firing immigration judges with plans to send military lawyers to decide immigration cases. The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with Trump and MAGA and ordered lower courts not to obstruct the Trump administration. The Supreme Court also ordered lower courts to only accept suits from those with standing (i.e. only from those personally affected by the actions being challenged in court) and allowed Trump and MAGA to end legal protection for migrants from four countries: Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
• Trump and MAGA are building detention camps amid ever increasingly horrific conditions in immigration detention. One of these is the cruelly dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Florida Everglades. Florida’s Governor further hints at a new immigration jail called Panhandle Pokey.

What is behind all this?

Racism, greed, and the quest for political gain for the extreme right — i.e. MAGA, Trump, and their billionaire backers.

What causes migration?

• Imperialist policies such as economic embargoes and sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and other countries.
• Imperialist policies of regime change
• International Monetary Fund loan conditions, so-called “structural conditions,” unfair trade agreements, coups, and other imperialist methods of forcing neoliberal economics on developing countries.

The most powerful force driving mass migration from poor countries to rich ones like the United States is imperialism. The U.S. government over the years has implemented policies which have increased poverty, insecurity, and environmental disaster in the poorer countries, to the benefit of major transnational corporations in which wealthy U.S. citizens hold billions of dollars worth of investments. Examples of these policies and interventions include:

• Direct or indirect military interventions to keep right wing dictators in power, or to remove more progressive governments. Trump’s false accusations towards the government of Venezuela to justify military attacks on Venezuelan fishing vessels is one example.
• Bolstering dictators like the Duvalier father and son team in Haiti. In 1954, the United States engineered the overthrow of the democratic government of Guatemala, replacing it with a series of repressive and corrupt dictatorships.
• Ousting elected leaders like Honduran President Zelaya, who was driven out of office in 2009 through another regime change method called “lawfare,” employing a corrupt judiciary. This also happened to oust Brazilian Presidents Lula and Dilma Rousseff and Peru’s ex-President Pedro Castillo.
• The imposition of grossly unequal trade arrangements and tariffs, which keep less powerful countries mired in poverty and instability, and thus drive migration to the United States and other wealthy countries.

Defend Immigrant Communities! A guide to action

Immigrant communities across the country are facing the terrifying threat from the Trump administration of mass deportations and family separation. As immigrant families and organizations come together to strategize, solidarity from the entire community is key. Here are some ideas for an action plan working with immigrant rights groups, that can be adjusted to the situation and needs in your state or city:

1. Collaborate with national organizations to boost local organizing. Reach out to small
   businesses, labor unions, and faith communities locally to educate and join forces.
2. Work in coalition with immigrant-led groups to form Neighborhood Defense Committees.
3. Include actions such as Rapid Response Networks with community allies responding to raids, stops, and other attempts to detain undocumented neighbors. Shame the ICE agents out of your neighborhood!
4. Develop committees to provide legal assistance, Know Your Rights trainings, funds to bond out of immigration detention, accompaniment to court.
5. Organize groups of lawyers to bring lawsuits against the unconstitutionality of the actions and defend birthright citizenship, enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
6. Create sanctuary state legislation and strategize ways to evade Trump’s deportation orders and prohibit 287(g) agreements at the local and state level, which allow local and state police to cooperate with ICE.
7. Pass sanctuary ordinances at the municipal and state level. (Los Angeles is an example.)
8. Confirm state, county, and local authorities’ promises to not cooperate with enforcement of immigration laws, and to decline federal funding that supports immigration enforcement. Hold meetings with local and state law enforcement entities and get confirmation and buy in — in writing, if possible.
9. Educate the general public on who the immigrants in the U.S. are and what they contribute to the economy. Promote citizenship and voting in the immigrant community; many green card holders could become citizens and vote.
10. Tell the immigrants that you know, undocumented and documented, that they are not alone.

Image: People in NY march to defend immigrant communities by Make the Road NY (Twitter/X)