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ICE Out of Everywhere – Abolish ICE!
The recent murder of two men at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has again mobilized people to demand the end to this para-military force that has been terrorizing communities around the country.
On July 7, in Houston, Texas, ICE forces, in their unmarked black SUVs, descended on Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was driving to work with his brother and two other people. His van was cut off and rammed, and Araujo was fatally shot. Six days later in Biddeford, Maine, Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero’s car was rammed by an ICE vehicle, and shots fired through the windshield of his car killed him.
In a lesser-known incident, the day after Durán Guerrero was murdered, ICE agents ambushed a group of men in St. Augustine, Florida, who were sitting in a car in a parking lot. Four of the men ran from the car, one attempted to run across a busy street and was hit by a tractor trailer and died at the scene.
The same day Araujo was shot dead, Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva, 45, died in ICE custody while he was being transferred from one so-called detention center to another in Georgia. He had been kidnapped by ICE at his home four days before and denied access to critical medication. There have been at least 21 deaths in ICE custody this year. There have been at least 29 shootings with at least eight people being killed.
Some of these killings brought thousands into the streets in Houston, Biddeford, and other cities. People expressed their sorrow and rage over the murder of members of their communities.
ICE has been spreading terror across the country as its masked, heavily armed forces invade cities and towns, assaulting, kidnapping, and murdering people who look like immigrants to them. Trump has ordered ICE to hunt and capture 2,000 people a day.
The so-called detention centers, 90% of which are privately owned, are for-profit concentration camps. Some have $500 million dollar contracts. They keep people in horrific conditions, forcing them to work and live in unsafe and unsanitary conditions. More than 70,000 people are being held under these conditions. Eight mega-prisons, each capable of holding 10,000 people, are planned for construction. The number of people abducted, imprisoned or deported to their countries of origin, or sent into exile in centers around the world, is not being reported.
In the aftermath of the most recent murders there are again demands for ICE to be accountable, to wear body cameras, and follow legal procedures. This is not what ICE was created for. Congress created an unregulated military force that that is now the 13th highest funded military force in the world. It carried out a massive hiring process offering signing bonuses of up to $60,000 for new recruits, and salaries around $100,000. Those heavily armed forces have been unleashed across the country.
When ICE invaded L.A., Chicago, and small cities and towns across the country, they were met by widespread resistance. This past December, the government decided to make a show of force in Minneapolis. Trump waged a propaganda campaign demonizing the Somali community there. Operation Metro Surge sent 3,000 heavily armed paramilitary ICE forces, soon followed by another 1,000.
People responded, mobilizing to defend the most vulnerable members of their communities. They provided food, rent money, safe travel for children to and from school. They organized neighborhood and city-wide patrols, tracking ICE and warning people of ICE presence. In a mass mobilization on January 23, people shut down much of the city in protest, including its schools and businesses. In response, the majority of ICE forces were withdrawn.
The people of Minneapolis showed that it is possible to resist, and with enough of us, we can win. We can organize in our neighborhoods and link those groupings together if ICE appears. We can talk with friends, co-workers and others and help them do the same. We can organize on the job, to protect people who could be targeted as workers in a number of hospitals have done, resulting in people being freed from ICE custody; as some bus drivers have declared they will do, to carry out their responsibility to protect their passengers; as teachers and school staff have done around the country to protect their students.
The choice is ours. We stand together or fall separately. Abolish ICE!
Reports From Speak Out Members Around the U.S.
Fight Poverty, NOT Poor People!
Politicians within the State Legislature are pushing forward bill HB 437 that would criminalize “unauthorized sleeping” within public spaces. It would require local municipalities to either close homeless encampments or provide substantial services without providing any funding from the state to do so. It would also authorize anyone to sue local governments if they don’t enforce this proposed law. This bill is being promoted in the name of “safety,” but this is nothing more than an attack on homeless people who will be pushed further into the margins.
This is an indictment of the entire system! Rather than addressing any of the real social issues that lead to homelessness – low wages, enormous housing costs, lack of mental health supports – all that the people in power have to offer is to hide the problem by way of criminalizing poor people!
AHS Update: Workers’ Victory! But the Fight Continues
On June 25, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors adopted a budget for 2026-2027 which includes $19.3 million to rescind 92 planned layoffs throughout Alameda Health Systems (AHS), the county’s public hospital system. This is a victory for the healthcare workers and community members who fought hard to save our essential services over the last eight months!
But more work is needed. This funding only covers one year, and the outpatient behavioral health programs at Highland and Fairmont Hospitals are still slated for closure on October 31. AHS is still facing a critical budget deficit due to mismanagement and Medi-Cal cuts from Gavin Newsom and Trump’s Big Ugly Bill. We can and should celebrate this win, but we also recognize that these attacks will keep coming. We will continue organizing to fight for the healthcare and jobs we need!
For more information and updates go to SaveAHS.org.
Newark, New Jersey: Four in Ten New Jerseyans Barely Make Ends Meet
United Way of New Jersey recently issued their annual Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed (ALICE) report. The report identifies families of four that, despite having two full-time workers, are barely able to make ends meet. According to the report, families in N.J. must make about $115,000 per year in order to keep out of financial hardship. And in New Jersey, 39% of all families don’t make that much. They often struggle to provide for themselves even though they’re nowhere near falling below the official federal definition of poverty!
But with overwhelming costs for housing and childcare, inflation in food and transportation costs and more, this shouldn’t surprise us. This system isn’t designed for us to do anything more than just get by.
Baltimore, Maryland: Workers Are Not Disposable
Last week, 379 videogame workers in Maryland suddenly lost their jobs. They worked for Bethesda Game Studios and Zenimax Online Studios, both owned by Microsoft, producing popular games like Fallout. Both divisions had formed unions in the last few years, and many at Bethesda were still not covered by a contract—workers say that Microsoft was refusing to bargain. At the headquarters in Rockville, laid-off workers and those still employed held a protest to demand fair severance pay and an end to the frequent job cuts.
A few days later, the owners of the popular Baltimore coffee shop Baby’s on Fire announced it would close. The workers there had announced that they were forming a union just a week earlier.
From technical jobs at the largest companies in the world to service jobs at local small businesses, workers are treated like we are disposable—especially when we start to organize and demand respect!
