Donald Trump’s illegal mobilization of the National Guard and the Marines has nothing to do with restoring order—protests are mostly small, and peaceful—and everything to do with sowing chaos and squelching dissent.
Here’s a visual timeline from the Guardian of how peaceful protests over immigration raids escalated when Trump took the unprecedented step of sending federal troops not to protect protesters—as they did during the civil rights era—but to intimidate, arrest and beat down.
It shows how on Friday, June 7, David Huerta, the president of California’s largest union was simply standing outside a business observing one of the raids, when he was knocked down by a masked agent, pepper sprayed, briefly hospitalized with a head injury and arrested on federal charges. (He was released on Monday on a $50,000 bond.)
When he was released, David Huerta said the only way to win change is through nonviolence. “This fight is ours, it’s our community’s, but it belongs to everyone,” Huerta said in Spanish. “We all have to fight for them.”
NOW members know the truth in these words—and we also know how hard we have fought, and communities like the ones now being targeted have fought to secure and strengthen our most basic rights.
NOW has been fighting the Trump Administration’s cruel, anti-immigration agenda since we launched our “Unlock the Future” campaign to fight Trump’s family separation and mass detention policy during his first term.
What’s at stake in these protests is not just free speech but concerns that can mean life or death to immigrants.
Family separation is back, and so is the horrible fear and anxiety of increased immigration enforcement that make it impossible for women to feel safe in their homes and in their workplaces.
The Administration’s decision to allow ICE to conduct arrests in sensitive areas such as schools and churches, and at court and routine office appointments spreads more fear and disrupts whole communities that have come to rely on the contributions of immigrants in the places we shop and do business.
And increased deportations—scooping innocent, hard-working immigrants into nets said to be catching “criminals” raises fears about the arbitrary nature of enforcement. No family is safe.
NOW will continue to fight to protect our hard-won rights and support those who are today paying a terrible price for their own courage in standing tall and speaking out.
We stand with them.