From work strikes to legal campaigns, multiple efforts have been mounted to resist the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which has instilled fear and panic in communities across the United States.
Recent raids have impacted “nearly 200 people in the Carolinas and Georgia, more than 150 in and around Los Angeles, and around 40 in New York,” according to the Associated Press on Sunday. Raids also reportedly took place in Arizona and Chicago. President Donald Trump on Saturday said the raids were “merely the keeping of my campaign promise.”
The Washington Post wrote:
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told ABC News on Sunday that it was creating a “rapid response team” to combat a potential rise in deportations under Trump.
“This administration is just getting started and we’re anticipating much worse,” senior attorney Lee Gelernt told the outlet in a phone interview, citing Trump’s language as reason to fear that this administration’s approach will be harsher than that of former President Barack Obama. “His rhetoric is already scaring a lot of people in immigrant communities.”
According to ABC, “[t]he rapid response team would bring together the ACLU, private law firms, and local community groups to ensure that individuals facing deportations have access to counsel right away.”
Meanwhile, across the southern border, a coalition of prominent Mexican officials, legislators, and other political figures are reportedly ready to create a “backlog” in the U.S. immigration courts system in an effort to make mass deportations nigh-impossible—and to give potential deportees the legal representation they often lack.
At the same time, other forms of resistance are spreading.
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