TL;DR February 26
Welcome to our news segment: TL;DR of Immigration News, for when the news is Too Long and you Didn’t Read it.
This is a weekly collection of immigration-related news stories. These bite-size summaries will keep you up to date without overwhelming your inbox.
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Black history tells us about our past, present, and future
For Black History Month, Rann Miller brings a thoughtful lesson on why Black History can teach us something about how the Trump administration is treating immigrants and asylum seekers in our current moment.
Miller writes, “Historically, white people have employed astounding intellectual and moral gymnastics to justify refusing to engage with Black people on their terms—refusing to live alongside them once free, yet living in the same house with them when enslaved. Today’s version of this way of thinking is calling for mass deportations in a country that overwhelmingly relies on exploited undocumented labor.”
Miller also talks about the similarities between the forced migration cycles caused by US foreign policy in Latin America and the targeted removal of African people under the US government in the 19th century. Supporters of this effort included Abraham Lincoln, and it has parallels with the fact that white Americans today are likely to support both mass deportation and expanded pathways to citizenship.
Miller concludes, “This Black History Month, I’m reflecting on the persistent myth whites have told themselves: that their safety and economic success hinges on expulsion: of Native Americans, African Americans, and migrants from the Global South—many of whom sacrifice everything for the chance of one day becoming American. With the reelection of Donald Trump, our nation may have renewed its commitment to being weak and cruel, but history tells us this is a losing strategy.”
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Writer, translator, and immigrant advocate Alejandra Oliva writes about Chicago, where she lives. A city with an extensive fabric of sanctuary welcome generated by immigrant rights movements and communities, Chicago has been a priority target for the current administration’s devastating attacks against immigrants. DHS commissioner Tom Homan complained that too many of those he was trying to detain there actually knew their rights.
Oliva writes of how many neighborhood have become silent, their denizens fearing to venture out to spaces once made secure: churches, schools, hospitals. It is, she argues, precisely the plan: to alienate people from their neighborhoods, from the institutions that most support them, from one another. The plan is to make an entire population of people invisible.
And so, she concludes: “As for the rest of us—people who love our neighbors, even the sort you nod at from down the street—it’s up to us to make ourselves visible. To take to the streets in protest. To safely intervene in and document ICE activity. To educate ourselves about our rights and how to protect others. To watch kids and share meals, to go a little farther than the head nod, to make other spaces of protection and security outside of our institutions. It’s not perfect, but all we have, for now, is each other.”
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Anti-ICE activists disrupt Border Patrol hiring event in Atlanta, GA
On February 12th and 13th, ICE thought they would set up a hiring event at a Goodwill store in Atlanta Georgia. The community said hell no. On day one, protestors showed up and disrupted the event - waving a banner and encouraging people not to join ICE and become ‘loser narc[s]...’ (There’s a bit more to the message, the full glory of which can be discovered in the link above). On day two, protestors showed up…and ICE cancelled before the event even started.
About 20 activists showed up to these protests. A great example of the fact that even a small group of people can throw sand in the gears of the fascist machine.
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Judge blocks Trump immigration policy allowing arrests in churches for some religious groups
In a temporary win for both immigrant rights and religious freedom, US district judge Theodore Chang found that the current administration’s policy of allowing ICE to arrest people attending church should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out.
In pursuit of mass deportations, the current administration threw out DHS policies limiting where immigrant arrests can take place. The policy change instructed field agents to use “common sense” and “discretion” when conducting operations at houses of worship.
This policy change led a group of plaintiffs, including Quaker congregations as well as Georgia-based Baptist churches and a Sikh temple in California, to file suit. More than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans have also filed a similar but separate lawsuit in the state of Washington.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that in addition to violating the first amendment right to religious liberty, the policy change departs from a long-standing precedent against staging immigration enforcement operations in “protected areas” or “sensitive locations.” “It’s a fear that people are experiencing across the county,” plaintiffs’ attorney Bradley Girard told the judge during a February hearing. “People are not showing up, and the plaintiffs are suffering as a result.”
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Trump administration reverses ending legal aid for unaccompanied children, even while ICE’s next deportation target Is unaccompanied immigrant children
This pair of stories, both posted on Sunday, shows the intentional chaos created by the Trump administration targeting the most vulnerable of the vulnerable: unaccompanied children. Rolling Stone reports that the Office of Refugee Resettlement is sharing records with ICE regarding unaccompanied children, creating an opportunity for ICE to target these children for their intentionally cruel detention-to-deportation pipeline.
Apparently the plan was also for these children not to have legal representation, as the Arizona Daily Star reports that the current federal regime ordered groups providing such aid to unaccompanied minors to cease doing so on February 18. This decision was reversed after more than 15,000 people contacted their representatives in a 48-hour period after the decree was handed down--another great example of the people’s power.
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4 Actions you can take Right Now
Share the ICE Noncompliance Pledge with any people with a connection to colleges and university campuses. When Trump abuses the idea of Jewish safety to justify deportations, we must spread the word not to comply. Send to at least 5 friends: bit.ly/ICENoncompliancePledge
Respond to reports of suspected raids in your area in real time by reading and sharing the information in this 1-page guide. For those of us who are allies especially, learn how to watch for ICE and protect your neighbors.
Updated for 2025: Never Again Action is equipping members to organize themselves into neighborhood groups (or “pods”) to be trained and respond to deportation threats on a hyperlocal level. Learn more: bit.ly/BuildAPod2025
Support Never Again Action’s organizing by making a donation today. You can make a tax deductible donation via our fiscal sponsor at this link, or you can donate directly to our 501(c)(4) organization at this link.
Thanks for joining us for this week’s roundup! If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for next week’s roundup, drop us a line at neveragainaction@gmail.com.