Do you condemn throwing rocks at ICE?

(No)

A new level of resistance to the Trump deportation regime has begun. Rather than accept a handful of federal agents coming into our communities to kidnap family and friends and neighbors, people are fighting back more vigorously than ever. In California, where the people of LA have already led the way in mass resistance to ICE, farm workers recently fought back against agents seeking to take them captive. The feds appeared to use smoke bombs and possibly chemical weapons in a highly militarized raid on a legal cannabis farm, the latest in their series of violent attacks on migrants. But this time, footage shows people resisting, throwing objects at the agents, and setting a new tone for the fight against Trump’s Gestapo.

Photo by Tito Texidor III on Unsplash

From Los Angeles to New York to Texas to Minneapolis to farms and factories and neighborhoods across the country, resistance to ICE is escalating. As people fight back, as people resist being kidnapped by masked men who refuse to identify themself, as U.S. citizens, green card and visa holders, and migrants of all stripes appropriately practice what can only be called self-defense, you’ll see new questions being asked. As ICE agents are attacked, as people exercise their Second Amendment rights, as more Americans realize that this is the exact government tyranny and overreach we were warned about, you will see the framing shift. The most adamant resistance will be highlighted and criticized, and in time you will be asked: “Do you condemn the people attacking ICE?”

The answer must be no. It’s one thing to say ICE is bad — it’s easy to say the kidnappings and illegal detentions and terrorizing communities is patently wrong. It’s another thing to say that fighting back is correct and necessary, and historically it’s been hard for people in the U.S. and across the West to make that leap. Condemning the evils of ICE, the IDF, the KKK is easy, but insufficient. We need to both continue to hammer home the evils of Trump’s Gestapo and support those who are bold enough to fight back, those who resist being taken, to those who practice the self-defense that we’ve all been led to believe is a right in this country.

We need community defense and direct resistance now more than ever. The democratic process has failed us utterly, with ICE’s budget being expanded to be larger than the Russian military. Only the American and Chinese armed forces will now have more funding than ICE after the passage of the big, nightmarish bill. Of course some things can be done in that arena, including replacing every Democrat who isn’t willing to abolish ICE, but action must be taken now because people are suffering and dying now. In that recent California farm raid, a man died after falling from a roof. The United Farm Workers confirmed Jaime Alanis’s death. We need to resist and support those who take it upon themselves to fight back. Resistance can save lives, stop the next death, prevent the next Jamie.

The feds say that someone they were attacking at that raid fired a gun at them. They’re looking for the person who did it, and offering a reward. It is in moments like this that we get to practice solidarity. It’s in moments like this that we get to let the fascist regime know nobody saw a thing. We get to, and have to, stand with immigrants now more than ever. And the ground ripe for solidarity. Public sentiment now favors immigrants more than ever. A record 79% of Americans think immigration is good for the country. That shift in opinion came largely from seeing who migrants really are, who Trump is attacking, and what it does to communities. The deceptive idea of some immigrant gang members has been replaced with reality. Mothers, fathers, siblings, neighbors, farm workers, builders, professors, students, ordinary people are under attack. Masked, armed agents of a tyrannical government are going into schools, towns, and suburbs and taking our friends. And it’s our duty to stand fully, ten toes down, with those who are under attack.

That is the truth of the situation. The Trump regime has been blatant, reckless, and violently uncaring in its execution of this horrific and fascist program they’ve devised for migrants. Of course people are fighting back. Of course people are standing their ground. So now we’ll see the ramping up of tropes around law and order, good vs. bad immigrants, and other lies. These will be trotted out to condemn the resistance. Trump now says that he’s “giving Total Authorization for ICE to protect itself” after people fought back. This too is a classic fascist trope. The heavily armed agents of the state are just protecting themselves, of course. They’re really the victims here, according to the fascist playbook. The farm workers are the real big bad guys, in this framework. We of course must fully reject all of this bullshit, sweep it aside with the dismissal and condescension it deserves.

To fully demolish this argument, to escape these fascist talking points, we must be firmly grounded in the right of the people to defend themselves. We must accept the painful reality that we are indeed living under a fascist state, one that kidnaps people and one that is set to dramatically ramp up these efforts. We’ve all seen some variety of “What would you do in 1933 Germany? Well do that now!” over the past several years. The repetition of lines like that can numb us, repeated exposure can cause true and necessary points to lose their edge. But it’s here, the Gestapo is at the door, and we need to decide how to respond.

Photo by Jean on Unsplash

Not everyone will fight back with rocks or guns or blockades. But everyone can refuse to condemn the fighters. Everyone can understand that we have reached one of the many turning points on the journey to full authoritarianism. This one involves the resistance escalating. And the fascists want to play you for a fool, they want you to say that there’s a right way and a wrong way to fight state kidnappings. They want you to nod along as they say the real menace is people throwing rocks at the masked men trying to detain them, not the masked men going around detaining whoever they want, sending them to a concentration camp in a swamp, and shipping them to countries they’ve never been to. They want acquiescence. They want you to lean back on the safety of a legal structure they’re destroying from within.

You can say no. You don’t have to condemn the resistance. You don’t have to sell out our desperate neighbors fighting back. We can, and must, accept that fascism is here. We can accept that fascism is not some remote idea, it’s masked men jumping out of unmarked cars in order to kidnap people and whisk them away without due process. The bulwarks against tyranny have been circumvented like the Maginot Line. So now is the time for real resistance, real direct action, really confronting the weak, jack-booted thugs who think they have a right to rip families apart, devastate communities, and destroy democracy. Solidarity with those brave enough to fight back, and know that millions and millions of us are by your side. - JP