Immigrants Justice

 Join the Immigrant Justice Summer Training Series

When ICE comes to your community, do you know what to do? This summer, Indivisible is giving you a blueprint. 

Immigrant Justice Summer is a five-call national training series that will level up how you show up for immigrant justice. You’ll learn how to build up hyper-local networks and connect to experienced organizations to respond to ICE surges or new concentration camps in your area. 

With ICE buying up warehouses and anti-immigration agencies turbocharged by the GOP’s recent infusion of $70 billion into their coffers, we all need to be prepared. 

By the end of our series, you’ll be equipped to mount a safe, immigrant-aligned response when there’s an emergency action needed in your community to protect your neighbors from Trump’s detention and deportation regime.

Provided by Indivisible.   https://indivisible.org/resources/

Do’s and Don’ts for students and their families, if ICE comes to their homes,

All children have a right to public education.

What the law says about deportations and schools.

Schools must be safe havens, welcoming places of learning, free from racism and the threat of deportations. 

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• Strengthen your local connections and neighborhood response systems. Join local mutual aid efforts, sign up for grocery deliveries, or find other ways to help your neighbors.
• Create space for grief, solidarity, and collective action. 
• Join or start a local rapid response network, so that your community is prepared to mobilize quickly against a new detention facility, a new surge in militarized enforcement from the regime, or other threats posed to you and your neighbors.
• Paint murals, create art installations, host cookouts, and highlight joy in this fight to assert the dignity of our immigrant friends and family members. 
• Support immigrant-led organizations working on the ground; follow their lead and where appropriate propose tangible ways you could help with their next initiative.

 

 

 

Immigrant Rights for DACA

 

June 15 marks the anniversary of President Obama establishing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2012. We had hope that between DACA and widespread support for Dreamers, we’d be able to pass legislation to protect them, but for nearly 14 years, Republicans in Congress and President Trump have blocked any meaningful help for Dreamers, leaving hundreds of thousands vulnerable to detention, deportation and separation from their families. The attack on Dreamers is nothing short of horrific. Write to your members of Congress to demand protections for Dreamers. While the Trump administration is undermining the DACA renewal process and targeting Dreamers for deportation, Republicans in Congress just approved sending over $70 billion in new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to expand detention and deportation operations while sowing fear and instability in schools, workplaces and communities across the country. Combined with the more than $100 billion already available for immigration enforcement, this would bring total federal spending on immigration enforcement to nearly a quarter-trillion dollars—an unprecedented investment in detention, deportation and enforcement rather than solutions that keep families together and strengthen our economy. Just this past week, ICE detained two parents at a preschool graduation ceremony in Baltimore. It is an unconscionable assault on the values of safety, sanctuary and common decency that schools are meant to uphold, and it underscores how critical it is that we do all we can to protect our immigrant neighbors. Ahead of DACA’s anniversary, take action now and demand Congress provide Dreamers with the permanent protections and pathways to citizenship they deserve. In the more than a decade since DACA was established, the policy has enabled more than 825,000 young people who were brought to the United States as children to live, work and contribute to the communities in the only country many of them have called home. Dreamers are teachers, paraprofessionals, nurses, healthcare workers, university staff, public employees, students and essential workers. They help educate our children, care for our patients, strengthen our communities and keep our economy moving forward every day. But right now, so many of our friends, family and community members are experiencing delayed renewals, denials, detention and wrongful deportation. Every delay, denial, detention or wrongful deportation puts opportunity, economic security and family stability at risk. Dreamers are part of our communities, our workplaces and our families. They deserve the dignity of knowing that they can build their futures without fear of being torn away from the only home many have ever known. Write to your members of Congress and urge them to place partisan politics aside and give Dreamers a pathway to citizenship now. In unity, Randi Weingarten AFT President P.S. The AFT has resources available for members to keep themselves and their communities safe during enhanced federal immigration crackdowns, which you can find here.

Protect the Fans from ICE and Trump

The World Cup kick-off is finally here. This is our moment, our celebration, Our Copa.    For the next few weeks, we’ll be cheering for every goal our teams score, celebrating with the people that matter the most to us, and feeling the powerful way futbol has always brought us together.    This historic moment belongs to the people– the fans, the workers, the communities who have built this sport from the ground up and make fútbol the beautiful game that it is. It’s a time to celebrate and reclaim this moment for our gente wherever we are: in the stands, at our local watch parties, or in our living rooms surrounded by our family and compas.    If you’re ready to join this celebration, there’s a place for you. Whether you’re an organizer, an artist, a creator, a fan, or someone who simply loves the beautiful game, there’s a place for you in Our Copa.   Here’s some ways you can connect:

Sign the Petition: Protect the Fans   We’re calling for an immediate moratorium on ICE enforcement during the tournament and the lifting of travel bans that prevent fans from Haiti, Iran, Côte d’Ivoire, and Senegal from sharing in this historic moment.    Join the hundreds of compas who have already added their voice to demand that every fan–where we live, where we work and where we watch– is safe to celebrate the beautiful game.  PROTECT THE FANS Already signed? We need your help to spread the word and grow our message. Check out our toolkit below to share with your compas across social media in less than a minute.  SPREAD THE WORD

Today, and every single day until the final whistle blows, we’re coming together to remind the world that this is Our Copa. 

 

En la lucha, 

Our Copa and Mijente Comité 

What we are learning

 I detest Trump  and everything he does or says. Ditto his despicable aides and Cabinet members, his unprincipled sycophants and suck-ups.

But it’s possible that someday we’ll look back on this horrendous era and say we needed Trump. We needed to see how horrible it could get before America was able to revive its ideals. 

Please hear me out. Robert Rech. 

Even before Trump, we were barreling down the wrong road. Inequalities of income, wealth, and opportunity were worsening. Legalized bribery was soaring in the form of mounting campaign contributions from big corporations and the wealthy. Workers were getting shafted. On Wall Street and in C-suites, fealty to the rule of law was giving way to “greed is good” selfishness. Giant corporations were monopolizing ever more of the economy. America was losing its moral authority in the world (think Abu Ghraib and the torture memo).

We couldn’t have remained on that road. Even if we didn’t know it then, most of us understand that now. Trump has opened our eyes to the consequences of extreme greed, corruption, cruelty, and utter disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law. His brazenness and shamelessness have awakened us to much that we took for granted.

He and his regime are still dangerous as hell, of course. But the American public is catching on. His polls are in the cellar; they continue to fall. 

It’s as if the nation has been through basic training in democracy, a stress test in civics, a crash course in the importance of having a decent and good government.

Before Trump, how many Americans understood the importance of “checks and balances” among the three branches of government, as envisioned by the Founders? 

Now nearly everyone knows, because we’ve seen what happens when the head of the executive branch usurps the power of Congress and defies the federal courts.

How many of us really knew what “due process” meant when it came to giving people accused by the government an opportunity to defend themselves?

By now most of us have seen videos of people dragged out of their homes in the dead of night by masked agents of the U.S. government and thrown into detention camps without so much as a hearing. And we’ve seen government agents murder American citizens in cold blood on the streets of our cities. 

Did we understand the meaning of corruption, bribes, self-dealing, and pay-to-play before Trump extorted corporations and billionaires to contribute millions to his campaign, his PAC, his inauguration, his ballroom, and his 250th birthday party? Now, we surely do.

Did we really know the importance of professional civil servants before Trump fired tens of thousands of them and substituted brainless loyalists? Before he got rid of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because it published truthful jobs data he didn’t like?

Did we understand the importance of expertise before Trump turned his back on career diplomats at the State Department, doctors and epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control, and experienced lawyers at the Justice Department and replaced them with loyalist hacks?

Or the meaning of “equal justice under the law” before Trump turned the Justice Department into his own private law firm to prosecute political enemies and pardon supporters?

Did we comprehend the true meaning of freedom of speech and expression before Trump attacked our universities for allowing demonstrations he disliked? Before he got CBS to fire Stephen Colbert for satirizing him and muzzle “60 Minutes” for criticizing him? 

Join the Effort to Protect Public Education and Democracy

 

Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers describes the problem well.

Why Do Authoritarians Fear Teachers?

Because We Teach Critical Thinking

Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers. 2025. 

“Critical thinking is the heart of democracy, the muscle at the core that keeps democracy healthy and strong. We don’t tell our students who to vote for; we don’t tell our students what to believe. We teach them how to think for themselves, why democracy is important, and how they’re an important part of making it work and making it better. But rather than help teachers build a stronger America based on knowledge and truth and freedom of thought, fascists use fear, bullying, and culture wars to try to shut down teaching and democracy.

Ironically, there is one thing fascists and teachers agree on—that we cannot create a truly democratic, inclusive nation committed to opportunity for all without public schools. Fascists fight against public education because they want to control our minds, control our ideas, and control the future. And what do teachers do? We teach. It’s that simple. Class after class, year after year, we equip the next generation to think for themselves and preserve our nation’s precious bond between individual liberty, opportunity, and the common good.”

We Want Kids to Think—and Read—for Themselves

Excerpt from  Why Do Fascists Fear Teachers?

https://www.ahttps://www.aft.org/ae/spring2026/weingarten_wolfsonft.org/ae/spring2026/weingarten_wolfson

 

Read the book. Why Fascists Fear Teachers.  Public Education and The Future of Democracy. 2025. 

A project to organize and support efforts to Defend Democracy with a focus on public education is developing.  Watch this blog for more.  There is a place for you- dear reader. 

America’s colleges and universities are the “envy of the world,” driving economic growth and providing better lives for students and their families, said AFT President Randi Weingarten at a launch of the blueprint April 15 in Texas.

“But instead of investing in the next generation, the federal government is stripping hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants, attacking diversity, saddling millions of borrowers with student debt and abolishing minority-serving institutions—all in a cynical attempt to punish political enemies and control knowledge.”

The new policy platform, “A Blueprint for Strengthening and Transforming Higher Education,” details a vision where colleges and universities, not corporations, are treated as key forces in creating a functional democracy.

 

Teaching Democracy Through Critical Thinking, Civic Participation, and Democratic Engagement

Democracy depends upon an informed, thoughtful, and engaged citizenry. Public education plays a central role in preparing students not only for careers and personal success, but also for meaningful participation in democratic society.

Goal:  to assist teachers to shape their teaching toward preserving democracy.  To  encourage teachers to teach about and encourage democracy in our nation, state, and local institutions, including schools

To assist teachers  and faculty in resisting the increasing demands from the authoritarian right  that  right wing ideology be taught as truth or normal  in our schools. 

“Educate yourselves because we will need all of your intelligence.” Antonio Gramsci.

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Fired CBS Newsman Alleges He Was Asked to Insert Falsehoods Into his Reporting.

The longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, who was fired by CBS News on Tuesday after clashing with the network’s new management, issued a public statement accusing the network’s new executives of silencing employees and claiming they instructed him “to inject falsehoods and bias” into his reporting.

“‘60’ has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories,” Pelley wrote in the lengthy statement he shared on social media on Wednesday morning.

“When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.”

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Pelley criticized the new leadership at CBS, adding: “Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.”

He continued: “For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them.

“Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.”

He concluded his statement by saying that he was departing “after 37 years at CBS with one emotion – a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again – a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.”

CBS News did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment about the statement.

Bari Weiss addressed Pelley’s termination on the network’s morning call on Wednesday.

Trump Is Trying to Rig the Election

https://youtu.be/3ReeMwsghhU?si=OLwc2N8qjC1dFs69