As the Trump administration ramps up its assault on the immigrant community, people across the country are asking how they can keep their neighbors safe and how to defend against ICE raids. Teachers, nurses, and neighborhoods are forming committees to discuss how to respond when ICE shows up at their door. Students are sharing Know Your Rights flyers and attending anti-ICE rallies. In Chicago, when teachers thought ICE was trying to get in, they denied them access. Likewise, the Chicago Teachers Union has been forming “sanctuary teams” and has called for a “walk-in” to protect their students. Large anti-ICE rallies have taken place from St Louis and Indianapolis to Dallas and LA. These acts of resistance and protest are important because they are clear signs that the country is not being swallowed whole by reactionary politics. As Trump tries to overwhelm us with constant actions, regular people are finding ways to get organized and push back.

In Detroit, hundreds of people have come together to form a “People’s Assembly” to discuss how to defend against ICE. In attendance were immigrants, teachers, students, workers of all stripes, and different groups on the left. During the assembly, the whole collective debated several strategies of how to push back on ICE, and then made decisions to take action. Since then, these hundreds of people have been meeting and continuing to democratically carry out the strategies and tactics. This united front assembly is an important example of self-organization in motion. 

One of the things that is heartening about this experience is that there is a group of people who are committed to strengthening the democratic and independent character of the assembly. They not only understand the power of uniting the different tendencies of the Left, the union movement, and community forces, but understand that if this power is to continue, it has to be controlled by the movement itself. We should be wary of and push back against the co-optive tactics of the Democrats and the bureaucracies of the institutional nonprofits and unions who are subordinated to the Democrats.

One of the important issues being debated is how to develop concrete strategies to confront ICE and the Trump administration. Whether how to form rapid response networks that can summon activists in response to a raid, whether to focus on prevention by waging a broad political struggle, how to help people organize in their workplace, and how to use propaganda and political education to push back on the narratives and culture of fear being fostered by the Trump administration. One impressive feature of the assembly is that it has been able to create multiple working groups to tackle different strategies in a politically coordinated way. This has been possible due to the democratic, open nature of the discussions taking place.

It is absolutely essential that we develop ways to gather as many people as possible to respond to any attempt at ICE to remove people from our community, but we have to understand the need to be tactically flexible and strategically focused on supporting and empowering grassroots resistance and responses to ICE. Rather than focusing exclusively on “roaming squads” to look out for ICE, we need to ensure that our efforts strategically support and empower workers and community members organizing their own collective response to ICE that we can support. An example of this can be found in the “sanctuary teams” that teachers are forming at their schools.

The example of the teachers should be promoted in hospitals and other workplaces. Perspectives from a high school teacher and a clinician on what these committees could look like and how to build them have been recently published by Left Voice.

Likewise, the movement should promote neighborhood assemblies where communities can develop a collective response to ICE. In the event of a raid, the first line of defense will always be the people on the scene. This means neighbors, coworkers, school staff, hospital staff, and church members. It is all of our responsibility to respond when ICE shows up – for example if a restaurant locks its doors before a raid, they will need the community to come out and support them. The “People’s Assembly” should be the place where these different groups are coordinated, allowing the broader movement to more concretely support the needs of those most affected and resisting ICE. 

Some school and hospital administrations come out in support of their students that may be undocumented or have undocumented families. These efforts should be supported too. But we can’t wait or depend on bosses and elected officials to act. At the end of the day, it’s the staff that will be the front line in keeping students, patients, and neighbors safe.

If you are in a workplace with people who may be at risk of being targeted by ICE, don’t wait for your boss to say something! Talk to your coworkers and form a plan for what to do when ICE knocks. Write a joint statement as coworkers explaining where you stand. Coordinate with other workplaces and join the People’s Assembly.

It should be emphasized that the fight to push back ICE and keep our communities safe is a multifaceted struggle that will look different at different times and in different places across the country. But what will be absolutely essential is the presence of a mass movement and collective action in the streets, in schools, and in our workplaces.

It will be important to avoid the pitfalls of past efforts. In times like this when there’s a great sense of urgency and a need to act, there’s a lot of pressure to skip discussions and set up administrative or behind-the-scenes structures in hopes of maximizing “efficiency.” But what this misses is that the power of mass assemblies and worker committees comes from the trust and buy-in built through the democratic process. It can be slower and messy, but it is the source of strength and is what enables the most people to take ownership over the movement and to have agency in carrying out the decisions made by the assembly. To that end, activists and organizers should resist the instinct to “systematize.” That doesn’t mean we get rid of structure or procedures, but when we use these methods as “short cuts” to skip democratic processes, we actually end up hamstringing the potential of the committee or assembly. We should also avoid the instinct to treat people that show up as simply a set of people to be plugged-in to an ongoing campaign. Rather, we should treat the group as a body unto itself that activists are participating in.

There is also a lot of pressure to respond to these attacks on immigrants by trying to pass new legislation. Legislative measures to formally reinforce immigrant rights are important. Local and state governments that claim to support immigrants should put their money where their mouth is by passing protections and standing up against ICE. But we can’t stake our hopes in Democratic lawmakers who have so far refused to pass such legislation. Importantly, orienting toward calling representatives shifts our energy out of the streets. Unfortunately, the streets are where ICE is at and where our neighbors are at risk right at this moment.

To reiterate, the experience in Detroit with the “People’s Assembly” is a good experience that the movement across the country should seek to develop. Only through self-organized bodies that fight for class independence can we strengthen the movement and guard it against co-optation.