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
Tag Archives: politics
The Immigrant Trust Tour: 9-0 Win in Union County
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 readingThe Trenton Campaign: No Collaboration with ICE
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
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
How You Gonna Win if You Ain’t Right Within?
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
Disarming Candor
Donald Trump, on the disarmament of Hamas:
They’re going to disarm because they said they were going to disarm. If they don’t disarm, we will disarm them.
Asked how he will do that, Trump responded:
I don’t have to explain that to you. And I spoke to Hamas, and they said, “Yes, sir, we’re going to disarm.”
Stirring the POT (4)
Peace and Justice in Swarthmore
I’m at the Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA) conference at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Having a great time. Wish you were here.
Swarthmore is practically a caricature of an old school liberal arts college, half institution of higher education, half feudal estate. It’s hard not to love, but then, I myself am half academic and half landlord–an erstwhile academic with a last name that means “landlord.” So it’s easy enough for me to fantasize having a tenure-stream job here, taking sanctuary from the world amidst the ivy, the wildflowers, the curious, well-heeled students, and the crenellated towers of stone. I didn’t see any administrators, either. Maybe there aren’t any? Continue reading
Progress, Devolution, Disaster
Notes on Migrant Defense Work in New Jersey
When Resistencia en Acción started its campaign for a municipal resolution in favor of the ITA back in June, we were hoping not only to pass a pro-ITA resolution in Princeton, but to re-ignite what had begun as a statewide movement in favor of such resolutions. At least a dozen municipalities had passed pro-ITA resolutions before Princeton did, and I’m happy to say that a statewide pro-ITA movement has in fact taken off in New Jersey since late summer. Continue reading
Against Palestinian Disarmament
I’m not one to give anyone specifically military advice, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to comment on the fraud of Trump’s Gaza peace plan. Only one thing really needs to be said, and said at top volume: under no circumstances should any Palestinian militant group disarm for anyone or anything. That goes for Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, the Lion’s Den, and anyone else with a weapon and the will to use it. Do not disarm. Do NOT disarm. To disarm is to commit mass suicide by placing yourself in the hands of confirmed liars and psychopaths. Things are bad, but nothing could be worse than that.
Continue readingFascism and the War on Medicaid
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
