Thoughts on Rapid Response

In the last 24 hours or so, there have been three major ICE raids in my vicinity in central New Jersey, meaning in the vicinity of where I live or work: one in Hightstown (yesterday, at Franklin & Westerlea), one in Edison (yesterday, 45 Patrick Ave), and one in Trenton (today, 36 Bayard St). The Hightstown raid led to the detention of one person; the Edison one, now being described as one of the biggest since Trump took office, led to the detention of 29. My initial impression is that the Trenton raid was thwarted, and didn’t lead to any detentions; ICE lacked a judicial warrant in that case, and was refused entry into the premises.*

In every case, the first party on the scene with an express interest in the well-being and liberty of the target was a citizen-based Rapid Response group. Deportation and Immigration Response Equipo (DIRE) was first on the scene in Edison; Resistencia en Acción was first on the scene in Hightstown and Trenton. The press was not. Local law enforcement may or may not have been first on the scene, but is not primarily interested in the well-being or liberty of the target, and not legally obliged to regard that as a priority.

The first relevant party on the scene were volunteers who respond to distress calls with the same dispatch and sense of urgency as first responders in medical contexts. Anyone who’s worked in a hospital, as I have, knows what “Rapid Response” or “Code Blue” means. It means that someone’s life is on the line. If you’re on call, it means go. I wasn’t a clinician, but I took emergency call for the OR, and I still remember the combination of anxiety and adrenaline rush I’d feel when a bona fide emergency call would come in. There was nothing like it in academic life, and there’s been nothing like it in my professional life since. 

The difference between Rapid Response in a medical setting and Rapid Response to ICE is that the people who respond to a call for Rapid Response in a hospital are paid professionals trained for a limited set of scenarios that take place within a relatively controlled setting. When it comes to ICE, every Rapid Responder is an unpaid volunteer trained by other unpaid volunteers, venturing into the unknown, and putting themselves at risk for someone else.

I once responded to a surgical emergency in which the patient had post-operative complications after surgery (after an abortion, actually), started bleeding out, and had to be rushed back into an OR that I had already taken apart and started cleaning. The scrub nurse came in and told me I had ten minutes to put it back together and set it up. Or else what? Or else the patient would bleed out and die. After a few initial seconds of panicked paralysis, I got my shit together, and did it. The patient survived. It was a lot of pressure to be put under, but at least I knew that neither the surgeon nor the scrub nurse would lose their temper and shoot me. At most, I’d fuck the case up and get the patient killed. But at the end of the day, I’d still clock out, go home, and get paid. 

Rapid Responders for ICE detentions have no such certainty. Video is now emerging of law enforcement attacking people for filming law enforcement operations from a distance, and of shooting at people under highly questionable circumstances. It’s a matter of time before a Rapid Responder or other activist gets shot at or shot. Remember that the next time you come across some yahoo blathering about the uselessness or decadence of activists. Such people have no idea what they’re talking about. We owe these activists whatever remnants of liberty we still have. More on why in a later post. 

*For detailed documentation, go to the Facebook page of Resistencia en Acción, and see the posts for Wednesday, August 20, 2025, 9:39 am (Hightstown) and Thursday, August 21, 2025 at 9:35 am (Trenton). The Edison raid was more widely reported, indeed, made the national and international press.