A quick announcement of two talks I’m doing in the near future, both on health care. The first is called “Patient, Defend Thyself: Insurance Denials and the Resort to Force,” at the annual meeting of the Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA), Saturday, Oct. 11 at Swarthmore College. The second is a brief, untitled contribution to an Ethics Roundtable on access to health care, co-sponsored by the Association of Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) and Felician University, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 1-2 pm on Zoom. The PJSA talk is on-ground and only open to registered conference attendees; the APPE/Felician talk is fully online and open to the public. Continue reading
Category Archives: migrant defense
Montgomery Twp Issues ITA Proclamation
Apropos of my last post, Montgomery Township has just issued an official proclamation in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act. A proclamation has a somewhat lower official status than a resolution; unlike a resolution, it’s issued collectively by the mayor and Council, and doesn’t require individualized votes by Council members. So it’s not exactly what we wanted, but it’s still a win.
Whether coincidentally or not, two Council members who were present last time were absent today, notably Dennis Ahn and Vincent Barragan.
Continue readingThe ITA Resolution Campaign: An Update
Just a quick update on the progress of the mini-campaign here in New Jersey for municipal resolutions in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act. About a dozen or so resolutions passed between December 2024 and March 2025. After about two months of Council appearances, Resistencia en Acción and allies won a resolution here in Princeton on August 11th. My impression is that the Princeton win has generated the press coverage that’s breathed new life into the campaign. Continue reading
Activism and Its Critics
The migrant defense group that I work with, Resistencia en Acción, held a rummage sale the other day, raising $3,700 for migrants detained in a recent set of raids here in Princeton. That, by any measure, is a success. Think about what was involved in making it happen.
Someone had to conceive the idea, then convey it to others willing to help make it happen. Tasks had to be divided up, and people had to be held to keeping whatever promises of assistance they made. The organizers had to find a space within which to hold the event. They had to acquire several roomfuls of items to sell, then go to the space they’d acquired and arrange the items there. The space in question was a set of rooms in a church, not presently set up for a rummage sale. So that had to be set up. “That had to be set up” is elliptical for hours of work too tedious to describe: the space in question was the size of small house; anyone who’s moved homes, even from one apartment to another, knows what’s involved. Continue reading
“Not the Time for Cowardice”
Statement of Sadaf Jaffer in support of a municipal resolution supporting the Immigrant Trust Act, Montgomery (NJ) Town Council, Sept. 4.
Good evening,
As a former mayor and state legislator, I urge you to pass a resolution supporting the Immigrant Trust Act and to do everything in your power to ensure that our state assemblymembers Roy Freiman and Mitchelle Drulis cosponsor it as well. Continue reading
Statement to Montgomery Town Council
Montgomery Town Council
Sept. 4, 2025, 7 pm
100 Community Dr, Skillman, New Jersey
Hi, my name is Irfan Khawaja. I live in Princeton, but spend a fair bit of time here in Montgomery. I’m here to speak in favor of Montgomery’s passing a municipal-level resolution in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act, just as we’ve recently done in Princeton, and has been done in more than a dozen municipalities across the state. Continue reading
The Immigrant Trust Tour: Montgomery
Notes on Migrant Justice
As readers of this blog know, I’ve been involved in Resistencia en Acción’s campaign for a municipal level resolution, in Princeton, in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act. The ultimate aim of the campaign for municipal-level ITA resolutions is, of course, passage of the Act itself. The idea is to exert pressure on the state legislature through the municipal councils on the premise that the council resolutions provide a multiplier effect for public opinion.
The precedent here is the state law now in effect prohibiting the use of single-use plastic bags in retail sales, which passed through a decade-long campaign of citizen advocacy via the passage of local ordinances and resolutions. Whatever you think about that particular law–some love it, some hate it–it provides proof of concept for the strategy behind the campaign for the ITA municipal resolutions.* Continue reading
Resistance and Retaliation
Notes on Migrant Justice
In two posts here, I’ve taken issue with the idea that Princeton’s recent passage of (or even mere discussion of) the ITA Resolution has induced ICE to raid the town and detain people. The basic premise behind this claim is that ICE operations target municipalities that express opposition to ICE. The further implication is that if you want to avoid ICE operations where you live, you have to tone down your public opposition to ICE, and adopt a “quiet” form of dissent. It can’t be stressed enough how dangerously out of touch with reality this claim is. If put into practice, it would mean the end of public opposition to ICE at a time when public opposition is clearly working, and is all we have. Continue reading
Resistance in Action (7)
Resistencia en Acción Rapid Response Emergency Fund
There’s a lot more to say about Rapid Response to ICE detention, which I hope to say here soon, but for now, I wanted to announce Resistencia en Acción’s Rapid Response Emergency Fund in the hopes of getting some contributions from readers. The preceding link takes you to the donation form on zeffy.com. You can also get to the link by going to Resistencia’s Facebook page, and scrolling down to the post for August 21, 11:50 pm.
Resistance in Action (6)
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.* Continue reading
Policy of Truth 