Category Archives: migrant defense

The Immigrant Trust Tour: Lawrence Township

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, migrant defense, pedagogy

Last night was Clifton; tonight was Lawrence Township. The statement I gave in Lawrence was essentially the same as the one I gave in Clifton, so I won’t reproduce it. Just a few thoughts and some pictures tonight.

I was gratified at how receptive Lawrence Township was to us. They not only put us on the agenda, but gave us a dedicated spot at the beginning. About a dozen people spoke in defense of the ITA, for about an hour. Lots of activists from Resistencia; one activist from Latino Action Network; and one woman from the Progressive Caucus of the Democratic Party of Monmouth County, a MAGA stronghold more than an hour away. Continue reading →

Thoughts on a Self-Deportation

Posted on by under migrant defense, slices of life

I was at a self-deportation the other day. Someone who’d been in this country for decades decided it was time to leave, even at the price of breaking up the family. So, surrounded by friends and family, they did.

I’m not sure what verb to use for my presence at this scene. I was present, but not wholly present, engaged, but not fully engaged. I had things to do that day, and couldn’t afford the luxury of wholehearted empathy or grief. Did I observe? Bear witness? Psychologically flee the scene? A little bit of all of the above.

The English language lacks a word for the act of observing, but deliberately holding oneself aloof from, another person’s misfortune. It’s too bad, because self-deportation and family dissolution are quickly becoming commonplaces. We can’t be fully present for all of them. So the word we lack is a word we need.

The Trenton Campaign: No Collaboration with ICE

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

Statement of Farahnaz Shemeem to Trenton City Council
319 E. State St.
Trenton, New Jersey
October 21, 2025

Hello, good evening, Council; my name is Farahnaz, [Trenton address]. I’m a Rapid Responder with Resistencia en Acción, an organization that supports families impacted by ICE operations. I’m here today to share what I’ve personally witnessed and to call your attention to what is happening in our city.

As someone who has grown up in Trenton, it is deeply painful to see the Trenton Police assisting ICE agents–agents who are breaking our laws, violating their own policies, and lying to families to get them out of their homes and cars. Instead of protecting the community, our officers are enabling ICE to terrorize our neighborhoods and enter spaces where they have no legal authority to be. The Trenton Police has been assisting ICE agents in creating intimidation which prevents people from exercising their constitutional rights, the right to remain in their private spaces, to record ICE, and to inform others of their rights. Continue reading →

The Immigrant Trust Tour: West Windsor

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

I spoke before the West Windsor Town Council this evening, defending the idea of a pro-ITA municipal resolution there modeled on the one we have in Princeton. I was very pleased to learn that Councilman Dan Weiss had already written in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act; he expressed enthusiastic support for a municipal resolution at the meeting as well. My hope is to re-visit the issue with the council after the election with some West Windsorites in tow. Here’s the text of the statement I gave. Continue reading →

The Immigrant Trust Tour: 9-0 Win in Union County

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

Well readers, we did it. The Union County Board of County Commissioners voted 9-0 tonight to adopt Resolution 2025-796:

Supporting the Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center’s efforts, and encouraging the New Jersey Legislature to pass Senate Bill 3672 and Assembly Bill A4987, which establishes protections for immigrants interacting with government agencies, and designates the “New Jersey Immigrant Trust Act.”

The resolution was co-sponsored by Commissioner Sergio Granados and Chairwoman Lourdes M. Leon, and supported by the entire Board. The Board passed the resolution, offered words of support for migrant rights generally, praised our efforts, and promised to transmit the text of the resolution to the other twenty county governments in New Jersey–two of whom, Essex and Hudson, have already adopted resolutions. Union County makes three, with eighteen more to go.

Continue reading →

The Immigrant Trust Tour: Elizabeth

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

Statement to the Union County Board of County Commissioners
12 Elizabethtown Plaza
Elizabeth, New Jersey
October 23, 2025

Hi, my name is Irfan Khawaja; I live in Princeton. As some of you may remember, I spoke here previously on the matter of the Union County jail. Those of us involved in that effort were pleased to see the Commission conclude this past July that detention-related uses of the jail were “off the table” because they “would not align with Union County’s values.”  

Given the troubling reports we’ve seen nationwide about ICE detaining not only individuals with criminal charges, but also everyday people simply trying to build better lives, we cannot support any outcome that risks putting people in jeopardy.

Continue reading →

The Trenton Campaign: No Collaboration with ICE

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

Statement of Hilary Persky to Trenton City Council
319 E. State St.
Trenton, New Jersey
October 21, 2025

Like so many here, I have watched the Trenton Police, during an ICE raid in August, establish a perimeter around ICE agents. We’re told this was to maintain public safety, because ICE had a battering ram, but no warrant, ready to break in–with no warrant. And a police perimeter. Continue reading →

The Immigrant Trust Tour: October Update

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

To the best of my knowledge, the municipal-level campaign to persuade the New Jersey state legislature to pass the Immigrant Trust Act started last December in Madison, New Jersey, an affluent college town in a relatively conservative part of the state. By March, about a dozen municipalities had followed suit. 

Things quieted down in the months after that, but with the impetus of a constant drumbeat of ICE raids, things started up again in June with the campaign for a resolution in Princeton, which eventually passed in August. Whether it’s correlation or causality or both, the movement has heated up since then and gone statewide. About twenty municipalities and two counties have at this point passed pro-ITA resolutions, and plenty of county commissions and town councils across the state are facing demands to pass more. Continue reading →

The Immigrant Trust Tour: West Windsor

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

Letter to the Editor of CommunityNews (West Windsor & Plainsboro)

Though I’m not a West Windsor resident, I read with interest your coverage of the upcoming election for mayor and town council, and in particular, the Q&A addressed to the candidates (“West Windsor voters to decide mayor, council contests,” Oct 2).

That said, it seems to me that one important question went unasked. The question is: would the mayor and council be willing to pass a municipal resolution in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act (ITA)? Such resolutions have been passed by some twenty municipalities in the state, including nearby Princeton, and by two counties, including Essex and Hudson.  How about West Windsor? Continue reading →

How You Gonna Win if You Ain’t Right Within?

Posted on by under migrant defense, Palestine

Just an FYI to the “No Kings” Democrats: you don’t get to blather to us about “No Kings” while calling for the disarmament of a population under military occupation. The people running these demonstrations seem too historically illiterate to remember that the American Revolution was a war, and that it got rid of the King by killing his troops. Continue reading →