Dear MoveOn member,
For many of us, the holiday season means spending time with our communities and families. Yet many families right now are scared to travel or have been ripped apart because of Trump’s violent policies.
We’ve seen the images and headlines: a child care worker violently pulled out of her pre-school in front of children, a college student detained while taking a domestic flight to surprise her parents for Thanksgiving, men pulled out of cars by masked, unidentified agents who refuse to say where they will be taken, and indiscriminate police stops in Black and brown communities.1,2,3,4 These are features—not accidents—of Trump’s agenda. He’s sent masked, unaccountable ICE agents to tear apart families and communities, he’s sent National Guard into our cities, and he’s empowered this personal armed force to defy the Constitution.
Trump is breaking the law and breaking hundreds of years of precedent, but he is not able to break our spirits. Each time this administration has sent federal agents—whether it be ICE, Customs Border Patrol, or the National Guard—to our cities, we’ve seen communities come together to fight like hell to keep each other safe. People from all walks of life have blown whistles to alert neighbors, filmed the abusive actions of Trump’s agents, joined “Know Your Rights” trainings and Walking School Buses, attended protests, and contributed to mutual aid.
We are not giving up on our neighbors and our communities. We are investing in each other, we are creating a better future together, and we’re in this fight together for as long as it takes.
Below is background on how the three organizations are protecting their communities in the face of the Trump administration’s deployments of ICE and the National Guard.
By the time the National Guard was sent to D.C. in August and the Trump administration took federal control of the city’s police department, Free DC had already trained thousands of D.C. residents across the city to be ready to protect their communities and fight back in the face of military occupation. And four months into the occupation, they are escalating the community spirit of defiance. Free DC organizes neighborhood by neighborhood and trains people to use their roles as jurors, consumers, taxpayers, and workers, in addition to engaging in rapid mobilizations as needed for community protection. Their work has been a powerful bright light showing the pathway to liberation and is motivating and guiding many around the country on what we can do to secure dignity and human rights for our communities.
When the Trump administration sent the National Guard to Memphis and instituted the “Safety Taskforce,” a 30-federal-agency-wide racial profiling campaign, Memphis For All helped launch Free the 901, a campaign to free the city from Trump’s hostile takeover. They organized elected officials—from county-level officials to state legislators—to file a lawsuit against the governor, challenging his authority to deploy the Tennessee National Guard to Memphis.They hosted Know Your Rights trainings for people throughout the city and organized community block parties centering joy while providing resources to the community. Looking forward, with three elections occurring in 2026, Memphis for All will be educating and mobilizing the community to get out the vote.
North Carolina was one of the first states to be targeted by Customs and Border Patrol in the South—and Siembra NC was ready to respond. They launched a statewide campaign called “Safe to Work, Safe to School” to combat ICE’s cruel attacks on families—tracking ICE presence across the state, launching ICE watch patrols and training volunteers to be legal observers, and mobilizing thousands of volunteers. Because of their swift and coordinated efforts, Border Patrol left North Carolina after just one week. But they’ll be back, and Siembra NC needs support to build and sustain the infrastructure necessary to fight back against CPB and ICE’s continued assault on its residents.
Things might be dire, but one thing we can always rely on is each other. Solidarity with each other is our only path out of this.
Thanks for all you do.
–Kelsey, Julia, Alex, Allison, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. “Day care worker detained by immigration agents in Chicago released,” PBS News, November 13, 2025
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/day-care-worker-detained-by-immigration-agents-in-chicago-released
2. “A college freshman deported while flying home for Thanksgiving is fighting to return. Here’s what we know about her case,” CNN, December 2, 2025
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/01/us/babson-college-student-deported-thanksgiving-hnk
3. “Masked immigration agents are spurring fear and confusion across the U.S.,” NPR, July 10, 2025
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/09/nx-s1-5440311/ice-raids-masked-agents
4. “‘I Don’t Feel Safe’: Black Memphis Residents Report Harassment by Trump’s Police Task Force,” ProPublica, November 3, 2025
https://www.propublica.org/article/memphis-safe-task-force-police-harassment
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