When ICE comes for our neighbors, we respond with everything we’ve got.
by Katy Erker-Lynch, Executive Director
“We’re exhausted and heartbroken — and we’re nowhere near defeated.”
I received that text late Saturday night after checking in with our friend and colleague Kat Rohn, executive director of OutFront Minnesota. When I heard about the extrajudicial murder of ICU nurse Alex Pretti, I immediately texted Kat because they and their team have been organizing with intersectional partners across the Twin Cities.
Right now, ICE agents are using dehumanizing and terror-inducing tactics to tear apart families and execute people in broad daylight. In our cities. In our neighborhoods. Whether it’s at our border or in our own backyards, ICE is disappearing Black, brown, immigrant, trans, and queer people.
- Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old kid, was kidnapped and used as bait by ICE.
- Renee Good, a queer woman and mother of three from Kansas City who had just dropped off her six year old at school, was murdered by ICE in Minnesota.
- Keith Porter Jr., a father of two daughters celebrating the New Year and remembered for his ability to make loved-ones smile, was murdered by an off-duty ICE agent in Los Angeles.
- Alex Pretti, a peaceful observer aiming to keep protestors safe and document ICE actions, was murdered in Minnesota.
They have done all this with impunity.
Without fear of any consequences.
In fact, their criminal violence is being labeled heroism by fascists in power.
If you’re a parent like me, we turn to our own children. We parent them through our grief. We hold them close, knowing we cannot promise they will be safe in a country that sees so many of us as disposable. It’s hard not to feel — not to feel the pain of families being ripped apart, separated and not knowing what is happening to each other.
Missouri also knows what ICE violence looks like. Detention centers across our own state are violating detainees’ PREA rights and allowing sexual, physical, and emotional abuse of trans and queer refugees and asylum seekers. These are members of our community, people fleeing their homes from fear of political persecution because they are LGBTQ+. They are being forced into solitary confinement, being housed in the wrong gender dorms, and are being abused behind locked doors. We have reports of these events happening, of people being abused in your community where local detention centers have ICE contracts. This isn’t happening far away, it’s happening here.
Our community has been here before, but to a lot of us this moment might feel more dangerous. It might feel ineffective and depressing to focus on resistance against our own state government when fascists have taken hold of our cities and systems across the country.
However, we cannot give up or give an inch.
Because that’s exactly what they want.
We refuse to back down.
PROMO denounces the atrocious actions by ICE upon our immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities. It’s why last week we organized 650 people to show up to protect trans young people with written and in-person testimony at the Missouri State Capitol. It’s why we and other movement organizations brought together over 1,000 people the following day to fight back at a rally inside that same building to defend democracy across issues: workers’ rights, abortion access, LGBTQ+ dignity, immigration justice, and Black liberation. It’s why we joined the Missouri Workers Center’s efforts to mobilize Missourians in mass protests against ICE in Kansas City and St. Louis. We envision Missouri as a state in which all LGBTQ+ people can thrive, and that goes beyond race, ethnicity, zip code, or home country.
So what do we do now?
We give ourselves permission to grieve.
To feel righteous anger. And then we act.
Our friends and partners in Minnesota are asking for support. Many of our own Missourians have found safety and healthcare in Minnesota. And they’re now calling on us to fight alongside them.
Stand with Minnesota:
- Donate to help families pay rent, support organizations on the front lines, and fund the urgent needs of community: https://www.standwithminnesota.com/
- Get involved with Border Butterflies Project, a coordinated coalition response to the crisis of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers at the U.S. Southern border: https://borderbutterfliesproject.com/
- Read OutFront Minnesota’s Joint Solidarity Statement and their calls to action for local, state, and federal officials as well as to the community: https://www.outfront.org/joint-statement-minnesotas-lgbtq-organizations
- Twin Cities Pride operates a food pantry and gender affirming clothing closet at their community center you can give directly: https://tcpride.org/
Act in Missouri:
- Tell Missouri Senators to Reject ICE Funding: Keep up the pressure! The U.S. Senate will vote on whether to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Calls and emails are working! It is critical that you contact your U.S. Senators immediately and urge them to oppose any DHS funding package that includes funding for ICE.
- Donate to the Immigrant Family Emergency Fund to help families meet basic needs during a time of fear and uncertainty: https://youthbridge.org/immigrant-family-emergency-response/
- Volunteer or support the Immigrant & Refugee Ministry, a grassroots effort that connect volunteers with immigrants and refugees to assist them as they make their homes in St. Louis: https://www.stpiusv.org/migrantministry
- Know and understand what you can do if someone you know is detained by ICE from the St. Louis Rapid Response Coalition: https://www.ashreifoundation.org/rapid-response
- Follow Abide in Love Mutual Aid on Instagram to help immigrants and refugees detained by ICE who are arriving to Phelps County: https://www.instagram.com/abideinlove___/
This isn’t the first time we’ve faced darkness like this, and it won’t be the last. But we know how to survive. We know how to fight. And more than anything — we know how to care for one another.
We are not alone. And we are nowhere near defeated.
