Until the End of ICE

Statement from the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement (RAM) regarding the current political context of sweeping racist attacks from ICE and on the need to engage in sanctuary support organizing.

In the past week, the current figurehead of the U.S. empire threatened an upcoming round of raids targeting undocumented people– particularly families. It is no secret, however, that such raids have been going on for as long as this country has had immigrants. Whether the new raids promised by Trump – building on the increased deportations by Obama – happen this week, next week, later in the summer, or next year, those of us who respect human life must take action and stand side by side with those facing this onslaught.

When immigrant communities are not being actively ripped apart, they are habitually terrorized and dehumanized by the State and its far-right proxies. Right-wing militias have become increasingly emboldened, holding families hostage at gunpoint, as witnessed in the recent video of United Constitutional Patriots. It is well known that such militias — like the Minutemen — have long operated with impunity and even encouragement from ICE, for example, destroying food and water supplies placed along migration routes in the desert to inflict suffering. Children routinely die in ICE and Border Patrol custody; they are ripped from their families in a policy reminiscent of this country’s long history of stealing Black children or Native American children away as a means of terrorizing, controlling, and routing communities. Only a culture and bureaucracy steeped in white-supremacist ideology could enact such horrors.

Now more than ever, we must act together against this physical and psychological violence. We must fight for the most vulnerable among us. This is why the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement (RAM) has decided to engage in sanctuary work: to ensure that anyone in any community we are able to reach who does not feel safe in their home, at work, or at school has access to a place of refuge. We are honored to join a long-standing historical tradition of community self-defense in the face of State oppression. We recognize that this moment in history is not unique, and we refuse to stand idly by as the horrors of the past are repeated. Make no mistake; the State is our enemy, and the conditions you’ve heard about in detention centers where children are being held are not unusual. This isn’t about money. This isn’t about “capacity.” This is the deliberate internment and humiliation of a large group of people, motivated purely by racial hatred.

RAM stands in solidarity with all oppressed people around the world. We recognize all borders to be nothing more than oppressive tools utilized by State entities to allocate resources and regional power among a few, at the expense of the many. Join us in letting targeted populations know that we are here with them, while showing the State that its ruthless attempts to divide and conquer us are doomed to fail.

Chinga la Migra! Burn down the American plantation!

Contact: [email protected] if you would like to help provide housing in the Southern California, New York, New Haven, and Arkansas areas.