Speaker 1: Al Zon Media. Hi, friends, and welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: It's me James today and I'm very lucky to be
Speaker 1: joined by Sam Hamilton, who is the senior litigation staff
Speaker 1: attorney at Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Hi Sam, Hi James, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for joining us. And we are gathered here
Speaker 1: today to talk about the new proposals that DHS has
Speaker 1: to detain people in literal warehouses. Right, if people aren't familiar,
Speaker 1: maybe you could die out by explaining what those proposals
Speaker 1: are and how they specifically relate to the areas where
Speaker 1: you're organizing in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: So, around December of twenty twenty five, a journalist leaked
Speaker 3: a list of about twenty different cities across the country
Speaker 3: where where ICE was intending to open new detention facilities
Speaker 3: in warehouses specifically. And this list contained the names of
Speaker 3: the cities and the expected or projected occupancy of each
Speaker 3: of these facilities. And so I live here in Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 3: and there were two cities on that list with warehouses contemplated.
Speaker 3: One is located in the city of Flowery Branch, where
Speaker 3: the warehouse there is intended to detain up to one thousand,
Speaker 3: five hundred people, and the other is in the city
Speaker 3: of Social Circle, Georgia, where ICE intends to use a
Speaker 3: warehouse that is over one million square feet to detain
Speaker 3: about eighty five hundred people that fast.
Speaker 1: Like, I think that this would dwarf the capacity of
Speaker 1: any like I'm trying to think of, there are maybe
Speaker 1: prisons sort of bigger than that.
Speaker 4: I don't know, but like in immigration terms, I don't
Speaker 4: think there is anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, so for the last four
Speaker 3: years or so, I've worked I've worked on various different
Speaker 3: shutdown ICE campaigns here in Georgia, and for the last
Speaker 3: four years I've been working with the campaign to shut
Speaker 3: down the Folkston Ice Processing Center, which is an ice
Speaker 3: facility in South Georgia pretty close to Florida, but it's
Speaker 3: about a five hour drive from Atlanta, and that ended.
Speaker 2: Up expanding last summer.
Speaker 3: But the number of beds at that facility was projected
Speaker 3: to be around three thousand, and at the time that
Speaker 3: was going to be the largest ice attention facility in
Speaker 3: the country. So to jump from three thousand to eighty
Speaker 3: five hundred is yeah, it's massive, obviously.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean people wanted like it's not fascism and left.
Speaker 1: It comes from the Fascio Rain area of Italy. Right,
Speaker 1: Otherwise it's like sparkling authoritarianism or whatever. But like unless
Speaker 1: you're looking for like a gate with our Beckmark Fry
Speaker 1: on it or whatever, like like these are concentration camps.
Speaker 1: Like that, that is what this is. It was really
Speaker 1: interesting in twenty twenty three we had out the outdoor
Speaker 1: attention under the Biden administration, and like we didn't really
Speaker 1: have much coverage in the US media when we were
Speaker 1: participating in mutual aid there, but we'd had a lot
Speaker 1: from non US media, like folks from Japan and Singapore
Speaker 1: and Italy, and they just come and be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a concentration camp. And then they'd write the story
Speaker 1: and be like they're these a concentration camps. And I
Speaker 1: think I would never have got that pasted an editor
Speaker 1: in LA or New York. To them, it seems so
Speaker 1: self evident. Now we're just doing it on an even
Speaker 1: bigger scale. I guess it's it's terrible. It's this shit.
Speaker 1: So I know you've been organizing in social circles specifically,
Speaker 1: right or part of an organizing group, I should say,
Speaker 1: that's been opposing this detention center. So I think it'd
Speaker 1: be really instructive to people because either are all of
Speaker 1: these are going to be all over the country, and
Speaker 1: this won't be the only expansion of immigration detention we
Speaker 1: see in the next few years, I imagine, given the
Speaker 1: massive budget and the priority to the administration, can you
Speaker 1: explain a little bit about like how that campaign got
Speaker 1: started and then like the nuts and bolts of how
Speaker 1: this is being opposed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So before I get into that, I think providing
Speaker 3: some context on who the Social Circle community is it
Speaker 3: will be, you know, would be instructive. So it's a
Speaker 3: pretty small it's a very small city. It's got a
Speaker 3: population of about five thousand people, overwhelmingly Republican, overwhelmingly white,
Speaker 3: and pretty wealthy, Okay, And it's about an hour drive
Speaker 3: outside of Atlanta. And in December of twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: a news article was published in The Washington Post announcing,
Speaker 3: you know, the list of the twenty cities where these
Speaker 3: warehouses would be would be popping up. And it was
Speaker 3: that article that told the residents of Social Circle and
Speaker 3: the elected officials of Social Circle for the first time
Speaker 3: that this ice mega prison was coming to their community.
Speaker 3: There was no notice to the city by ICE or
Speaker 3: anyone in the federal government at all, certainly no opportunity
Speaker 3: to respond, no opportunity for public input.
Speaker 2: So they felt really blindsided.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm not from this community, and you know,
Speaker 3: I've I've met many of these people only for the
Speaker 3: first time, you know, within the last couple of months.
Speaker 3: But I think it would not be so far fetched
Speaker 3: to say that some of these people feel, you know,
Speaker 3: especially the ones who identify as Republicans or as you know, conservatives,
Speaker 3: I think they feel really betrayed by you know, by
Speaker 3: their government, by their party.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, a lot of these people, I
Speaker 3: mean I've just described the demographic. I think many of
Speaker 3: them have never been involved in organizing of any kind before.
Speaker 2: Some of them have, I think, but.
Speaker 3: I think due to you know, their life circumstances, just
Speaker 3: might not have found themselves in a place where they've
Speaker 3: needed to organize for anything. So a bunch of these
Speaker 3: residents got together and have been holding you know, in
Speaker 3: person kind of town hall community meetings, and they held
Speaker 3: one in January where they were about you know, I
Speaker 3: think forty to fifty people in the room, and they
Speaker 3: wanted to get together and you know, just have a
Speaker 3: public discourse about what could be done. And I was
Speaker 3: invited to this meeting because of my history of involvement
Speaker 3: with shutdown campaigns here in Georgia. I got started with
Speaker 3: shutdown campaigns in twenty when a nurse, a whistleblower who
Speaker 3: worked at an immigration detention center here in Georgia called
Speaker 3: the Irwin County Detention Center, alerted the public that there
Speaker 3: was a doctor who was contracting with ICE who had been,
Speaker 3: you know, providing medical services to women detained in this facility. Well,
Speaker 3: he had actually been performing non consensual and medically unnecessary
Speaker 3: medical and gynecological procedures on women in ICE detention. This, yeah,
Speaker 3: and when these women spoke out about it to their
Speaker 3: family members, to journalists, to their lawyers, to members of
Speaker 3: Congress or staffers for members of Congress, they were retaliated
Speaker 3: against by being swiftly deported and I'm talking put on
Speaker 3: planes within hours of speaking to a congressional staffer. And
Speaker 3: at the time, I was working at the University of
Speaker 3: Georgia School of Laws Fort Amendment Clinic, where we were
Speaker 3: providing you know, free legal service is to people across
Speaker 3: the state including you know, helping people with getting access
Speaker 3: to public records and suing the police and and you
Speaker 3: know and federal agents. Yeah, when they were retaliated against.
Speaker 3: And so we represented those women. And it was through
Speaker 3: my work at Irwin and you know, connecting with the
Speaker 3: organizers there, that I got involved with shut down campaigns,
Speaker 3: or rather the shutdown Irwin campaign here in Georgia, and
Speaker 3: then from there later got involved with the shutdown folks
Speaker 3: in campaigns. So I had been asked to speak to
Speaker 3: this group of people who I think were new to
Speaker 3: the immigrants right struggle, to talk about, you know, what
Speaker 3: it's like to try to prevent a detention center from
Speaker 3: popping up in their community.
Speaker 1: And they can say, like, it's not a community that
Speaker 1: might traditionally be demographically the same as the people who
Speaker 1: we associate with, like migrant advocacy, migrant activism. I guess
Speaker 1: when a group like that comes into a moment like this,
Speaker 1: there are some areas of like activism. I guess civil
Speaker 1: society stuff where like white suburban folks have some experience,
Speaker 1: right planning is one of them. Right, Like the recent
Speaker 1: bike planes only go north south in San Diego is
Speaker 1: because they think that those of us who can't afford
Speaker 1: to live by the sea don't deserve to cycle safely.
Speaker 1: Like there are many other examples of this. But what
Speaker 1: there were there like thoughts when they when they first met.
Speaker 1: I'm really interested to know that. Like, they're obviously upset
Speaker 1: and they feel abandoned and betrayed, but like, how did
Speaker 1: they want to organize to prevent this?
Speaker 3: Well, a lot of them were upset about the decrease
Speaker 3: in their property value.
Speaker 2: That was what was really bricating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was redicalizing, mom, same with the bike lanes.
Speaker 3: Actually, oh yeah, I bet yeah. And you know, but
Speaker 3: in addition to the property value stuff, it's also you know,
Speaker 3: the strain that this would impose on their small community.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, a number of the people who live.
Speaker 3: There might be of you know, well to do means,
Speaker 3: but you know, their city police department employs a total
Speaker 3: of fourteen officers and they have two on duty at
Speaker 3: any given time. They have a fire department of you know,
Speaker 3: comparably you know, small size, and they have you know,
Speaker 3: water and sewer infrastructure that was built to accommodate about
Speaker 3: as many people as live there. Now, you know, between
Speaker 3: four thousand and five thousand people. And it's that impact
Speaker 3: that is also you know, really maddening and activating and
Speaker 3: agitating to people. Those arguments are not new to us
Speaker 3: who have organized in South Georgia and also very red areas,
Speaker 3: a lot more rural and a lot less wealthy, you know,
Speaker 3: will try to We've canvas door to door in the
Speaker 3: city of Folkston to try to ask people how do
Speaker 3: they feel about this mega prison opening up in their community,
Speaker 3: and a lot of people, you know, we're we're against it.
Speaker 3: Despite the fact government officials might try to bill it
Speaker 3: as you know, an economic boon, you know, an employment opportunity,
Speaker 3: a lot of people said like, hey, I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't necessarily want a prison in my backyard, but if
Speaker 3: it's bringing jobs, then you know, that's what this community needs.
Speaker 3: That's something that I think makes Social Circle distinct from
Speaker 3: the previous shutdown campaigns I've worked on in Irwin County
Speaker 3: and in Folkston is that this isn't really an area
Speaker 3: that is starved for employment or starved for you know,
Speaker 3: economic support, Like these people are doing okay. And you know,
Speaker 3: another thing that makes it distinct is before all of
Speaker 3: this warehouse business, the vast majority of facilities in this
Speaker 3: country are formed through intergovernmental service agreements.
Speaker 2: You know, we're iggs's for sure, it is the acronym.
Speaker 3: But there are agreements between the federal government and the county,
Speaker 3: the local government where the local government says, yes, you
Speaker 3: can use our land or our facilities, and in exchange
Speaker 3: you pay us, I mean in the case of folks,
Speaker 3: and it's a comparably measly amount.
Speaker 2: It's only two hundred thousand dollars per.
Speaker 4: Year, Jesus, not much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even though the federal government is giving i mean
Speaker 3: fifty million dollars a year to insert your favorite private
Speaker 3: prison corporation here, you know, whether.
Speaker 2: It's Courcivic or geogroup. Yeah, I mean your favorite. There
Speaker 2: are only two.
Speaker 4: Really, yeah, not much of a joice.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: And so typically like we see this sort of like
Speaker 3: co opting and manipulation of the local community and the
Speaker 3: local government by the federal government, you know, coercing them
Speaker 3: economically to you know, to take on these detention centers
Speaker 3: or else. But here, I mean social like I said,
Speaker 3: Social Circle is doing fine. They're not starved for economic investment.
Speaker 3: And I didn't you know, consult them at all. It
Speaker 3: really just like you know, in the dead of night
Speaker 3: just bought this warehouse from a private company and push
Speaker 3: this deal through. So those are some aspects that I
Speaker 3: think might throw you know, some of us who might
Speaker 3: have been involved in these similar fights before, like for
Speaker 3: a loop a little bit, because yeah, there's this assumption
Speaker 3: I think by some of the local officials that the
Speaker 3: supremacy Clause governs here and the federal government can do
Speaker 3: whatever it wants. So there's no point in us trying
Speaker 3: to use our local zoning ordinances or what have you
Speaker 3: to try to put a stop to this, because there's
Speaker 3: nothing that we can do, right, is at least what
Speaker 3: you know, some people might be saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's take a break for advertisements. I can't think
Speaker 1: of anything mean to say, I know, buy some shit.
Speaker 1: This have come from a don't buy anything you don't need. Okay,
Speaker 1: we are back. So you were talking about this assumption
Speaker 1: that the supremacy cluse would mean that the federal government
Speaker 1: could build a mega prison in a warehouse in your
Speaker 1: town without asking you if it could do that.
Speaker 4: First, can you explain like how.
Speaker 1: People are able to use, like you said, like various
Speaker 1: local tools to oppose this.
Speaker 4: Like you said, it's a huge burden.
Speaker 1: When I first read this story, I remember thinking about, like,
Speaker 1: just like the water and sewage demands of housing eight
Speaker 1: thousand people would be crippling for the infrastructure in a
Speaker 1: lot of places, So like, how are people opposing this?
Speaker 3: Well, it's been really inspiring for me to see these
Speaker 3: local leaders who, again many of whom have you know,
Speaker 3: never been involved in activism we're organizing before. They've been
Speaker 3: very consistent in holding demonstrations on a weekly basis at
Speaker 3: the site of this facility, and have garnered the attention
Speaker 3: of different media who have come and interviewed them. So
Speaker 3: that's been one way that they've been trying to, you know,
Speaker 3: get their message out there. I was just talking about,
Speaker 3: you know, the residents who are concerned from you know,
Speaker 3: sort of fiscal perspective and are concerned about, you know,
Speaker 3: their own property values and things like that. But there
Speaker 3: are a fair number of people who are concerned about
Speaker 3: you know, the core human rights abuses.
Speaker 2: And you know, sures.
Speaker 3: Some of the lines might be well, this isn't the
Speaker 3: right place, you know, our city is not the right
Speaker 3: place for a detention center, suggesting you know, implying that
Speaker 3: there are some places that are suitable for a detention center.
Speaker 2: But there are a fair.
Speaker 3: Number of people in this community who who are opposed
Speaker 3: to detention centers in general. I mean they see that
Speaker 3: they see the violence that ICE is inflicting.
Speaker 2: In broad daylight on.
Speaker 3: Public streets, and I think they're they're horrified, and they
Speaker 3: don't want to be complicit in in something like that,
Speaker 3: you know, coming to their community. And I do think
Speaker 3: that along the way, I'm seeing more of a shift
Speaker 3: in the consciousness or at least an openness to understanding
Speaker 3: the different influences that bring us to the same table.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3: It has been very cool, and we can agree that.
Speaker 3: You know, we're not going to have one hundred per
Speaker 3: unity of ideas, but we can have a unity of action,
Speaker 3: and you know, we can save these debates on you know,
Speaker 3: I mean whether someone is illegal or not, but you know,
Speaker 3: we can continue to have them along the way, as
Speaker 3: we are also identifying the very concrete ways that we
Speaker 3: can work together. And I'm thinking of one, for example,
Speaker 3: I work pretty closely with some staffers for different members
Speaker 3: of Congress. I mean in terms of like uplifting you know,
Speaker 3: human rights and civil rights abuses that we see in
Speaker 3: detention centers because as part of my job, I go
Speaker 3: inside detention centers, immigration detention centers in Georgia pretty frequently,
Speaker 3: also federal prisons, and we'll meet with people and learn
Speaker 3: about the conditions that they're facing and will you know,
Speaker 3: fight for them to get released, and also share what
Speaker 3: I learned from them with you know, different members of Congress,
Speaker 3: and most of our connections are with people who are
Speaker 3: aligned with the Democratic Party, you know, I mean to
Speaker 3: be to be frank, you know, I've never initiated correspondents
Speaker 3: with a Republican but I think I kind of just
Speaker 3: assumed that they wouldn't want to, that I wouldn't get
Speaker 3: anywhere with them, or.
Speaker 2: That they wouldn't you know, that they wouldn't talk to me.
Speaker 2: But what's been effective and working.
Speaker 3: With this coalition of residents is some of these people,
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, like they you know, they've been card
Speaker 3: carrying Republicans for a long time and feel that they,
Speaker 3: you know, can wield influence over you know, certain Republican
Speaker 3: elected officials and yeah, yeah, and one of them, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, well, I don't know how many of them,
Speaker 3: but a number of these local residents have gotten Republican
Speaker 3: you know, Mike Collins to come out against this ice facility.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's especially right now in the Republican Party, and
Speaker 1: like that that could be very difficult for them to do.
Speaker 1: And I sort of on it's not hugely sympathetic to
Speaker 1: Republican politicians, and I would still like to see them
Speaker 1: get better.
Speaker 4: Like that's we want people to get better, that's the
Speaker 4: whole thing.
Speaker 1: And like I think for these people whose politics may
Speaker 1: not be the same as ours, sharing the space, sharing
Speaker 1: the movement, sharing this struggle.
Speaker 4: Like, I hope it makes people better.
Speaker 1: I hope being exposed to people who are not of
Speaker 1: the same background as you, be like class rized, race wise,
Speaker 1: politics wise, whatever, like makes people realize that things are
Speaker 1: not quite how they're presented to them on the television
Speaker 1: or in the media they consume totally. So I'm sure
Speaker 1: that's yeah, Like I hope that it's positive. What can
Speaker 1: like a local government do or even like elected officials do,
Speaker 1: given that the elect officials on federal level do. Given that,
Speaker 1: I mean, I suggest appears to be operating like without
Speaker 1: a great deal of oversight right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean with each of these warehouses, there are
Speaker 3: different circumstances around each of them. I've been really inspired,
Speaker 3: honestly by the folks in Maryland who are dealing with
Speaker 3: a warehouse, maybe multiple warehouses, I'm not sure. Yeah, where
Speaker 3: you know, at both the local and the state level,
Speaker 3: they have really pushed for legislation that would effectively, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, prevent these warehouses from existing at all. It
Speaker 3: is a different set of facts than what we're working
Speaker 3: with here in Georgia because there's more involvement by private actors,
Speaker 3: and so the government, you know, the local government can
Speaker 3: can regulate them more. But Maryland is certainly not the
Speaker 3: only place where where those fights are happening. And so
Speaker 3: I would really encourage folks to, yeah, to learn from Maryland.
Speaker 3: And I get you know, I'm talking about you know, legislation.
Speaker 3: I mean, I will be the first to tell you
Speaker 3: as a lawyer that I don't think legal tools will
Speaker 3: liberate us.
Speaker 2: You know, the law will not make us free.
Speaker 3: Sure, Yeah, And I do think it's the people power,
Speaker 3: it's the coming together, it's the mass collective action that is,
Speaker 3: you know, that's what's going.
Speaker 2: To do it.
Speaker 3: And also there are multile well, you know, there are
Speaker 3: multiple tools and multiplement instruments that we can they can wield.
Speaker 3: And so right now, I mean with respect to the
Speaker 3: Social Circle warehouse, ICE is saying that they intend to
Speaker 3: detain people in their starting in April, jeez, in less.
Speaker 2: Than two months. Yeah, and so right now, the.
Speaker 3: Strategy truly is to use just like every tool at
Speaker 3: our disposal, identifying, Yeah, like what legislation can be filed,
Speaker 3: what litigation you know, what lawsuits can be filed, what
Speaker 3: you know, demonstrations, what kind of you know, canvassing, door knocking?
Speaker 2: You know, you name it?
Speaker 3: Like, how can how can people come together? How can
Speaker 3: we try to identify which companies would be supplying the
Speaker 3: labor to turn this warehouse into something, you know, where
Speaker 3: people will be detained. I mean not that, not that
Speaker 3: I think ICE gives a damn about making any type
Speaker 3: of facilit habitable for humans.
Speaker 2: But there's gonna be there's gonna be some work that.
Speaker 3: Needs to be done in order to you know, turn
Speaker 3: this you know, would be Amazon warehouse into a place
Speaker 3: for people. And is there work that you know, local organizers,
Speaker 3: because they're organizers.
Speaker 2: We're all organ you know, we're all organizers.
Speaker 3: Is there work that local organizers can do to try
Speaker 3: to unite with laborers with workers who you know might
Speaker 3: be working on this facility to try to like prevent
Speaker 3: them or like city workers, Like can they prevent city
Speaker 3: workers from like actually hooking up this warehouse to the
Speaker 3: city utilities?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, presumably Yeah, that will be a building contractor, right,
Speaker 1: Like they will want to build thousands of cells in
Speaker 1: this giant Yeah. The coll of that stuff, and especially
Speaker 1: with it happening so quickly, like you know, anything delays
Speaker 1: that will cause it to at least slow it down.
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think another angle that we haven't talked about yet
Speaker 3: is the environmental angle, like with social circle, you know,
Speaker 3: this is I mean a town of five thousand, it's
Speaker 3: gonna trip. It's gonna nearly triple the number of people
Speaker 3: in this place, and I mean and also triple the
Speaker 3: amount of waste and sewage that's going to be coming
Speaker 3: out of this place.
Speaker 2: I mean, so that's one thing.
Speaker 3: Another thing for people to look at is, you know,
Speaker 3: what would the environmental impact of these warehouses be on
Speaker 3: local waterways for example?
Speaker 2: And that's what you know.
Speaker 3: Temporarily put a stop on the detention facility in the
Speaker 3: Everglades in Florida was a legal challenge in federal court
Speaker 3: under NIPA, the National Environmental Protection Act, because the federal
Speaker 3: government had failed to conduct the proper environmental impact assessments
Speaker 3: and the only thing that they actually really had to
Speaker 3: do was you know, something very procedural and you know,
Speaker 3: tick a box. And ultimately the facility ended up moving forward.
Speaker 3: But it was a tool to buy time to figure
Speaker 3: out what other types of organizing can we do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's still like even if it's only time, right,
Speaker 1: Like harm isn't being done in that time, and it's
Speaker 1: still a good thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like a form of harm reduction.
Speaker 1: It reminds me a lot of the struggles here against
Speaker 1: the UA larger border wall that we've seen since twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen when Trump got elected. Like I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: how there have been ecological challenges to it, there have
Speaker 1: been social challenges to it.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: The City of San Diego is currently trying to sue
Speaker 1: the FED to trest us for part of its wall construction,
Speaker 1: which like I'm not a big fan of our city
Speaker 1: govern meant, but like I'm glad they did that.
Speaker 4: And all these different.
Speaker 1: Tools have at least like at least in the last
Speaker 1: Trump administration I remember in the late summer of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty being out with some Kuma Yai folks who were
Speaker 1: in ceremony because the wall construction was destroying Kuma ancestors
Speaker 1: right who are buried there, and then the spaces where
Speaker 1: they are buried, And they ran out the clock on
Speaker 1: the Trump administration. Right by using their rights as indigenous
Speaker 1: people to be in ceremony, the refusal of the workers
Speaker 1: to literally drive a dump truck through the middle of
Speaker 1: their ceremonial practices, they were able to run the clock.
Speaker 4: Out on the Trump administration. Unfortunately, now we have another one.
Speaker 1: But like all those different things had to work together
Speaker 1: to mean that, like in that little part of the border,
Speaker 1: somebody's great great grandparents remains weren't dynamited out of the earth,
Speaker 1: and that's still a good thing.
Speaker 4: However we got there, that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: It makes me happy to hear that.
Speaker 1: Like even folks who might have otherwise been politically aligned
Speaker 1: with the project were appalled by this because the idea
Speaker 1: of literally warehousing humans, like it's so fucking bleak, Like
Speaker 1: there's these big warehouses where we fill them with shit
Speaker 1: that we don't need. And now definitely them with people
Speaker 1: that apparently we don't want, Like it's it's one of
Speaker 1: the more horrific things that I know. It just it's
Speaker 1: so bleak to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I agree, Like the veil has just been
Speaker 3: totally lifted, Like we know that they don't view immigrants
Speaker 3: as human. Yeah, but now they're like not even pretending anymore,
Speaker 3: just truly treating people like chattel.
Speaker 1: Yeah again yeah again, right in the same places in
Speaker 1: this instance. Like, I guess I'm glad that even people
Speaker 1: who aren't not politically on the same team maybe like
Speaker 1: are opposed to this because it's, uh, yeah, it is repugnant.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess what if people are hearing about this for
Speaker 1: the first time, right, and will include that link to
Speaker 1: the article so people can look up where these locations are,
Speaker 1: if any of them. What advice would you have for
Speaker 1: people if you're listening to this, you click on that link,
Speaker 1: you find this one half an hour from your house
Speaker 1: or whatever, Like, what advice do you have for those people?
Speaker 3: I think if you're already an organizer, regardless of whether
Speaker 3: you've been in the immigrants' rights fight or not, now
Speaker 3: is the time when it really is like all hands
Speaker 3: on deck. So don't be afraid to get involved. But also,
Speaker 3: you know, like we were talking about before we started,
Speaker 3: is I think guarantee that there is some immigrants rights
Speaker 3: movement in.
Speaker 2: Your locale or somewhere close by.
Speaker 3: And I think it's just so important to you know,
Speaker 3: approach this work not with the assumption that you are starting,
Speaker 3: you know, launching this new campaign, spearheading this you know, new,
Speaker 3: previously untapped, you know, area of work, because I guarantee
Speaker 3: you that you know, there are people who have have
Speaker 3: worked on this before. And so I think connect with
Speaker 3: you know, connect both with people who have been doing
Speaker 3: this work for a long time, and also try to
Speaker 3: connect with people who you might not otherwise have thought
Speaker 3: to connect with. And I think it's important to call
Speaker 3: out the nimbiism, the not in my backyardism of of how,
Speaker 3: you know, some people are coming at this issue because
Speaker 3: they're you know, they're worried about their property value.
Speaker 2: But it's also something that we can capitalize on.
Speaker 3: Right It's energy and oftentimes it's people with capital and
Speaker 3: connections that.
Speaker 2: You know that you might not otherwise have had access
Speaker 2: to either.
Speaker 3: So I think, you know, the connecting you know, in
Speaker 3: the community organizing needs to go in multiple directions, but
Speaker 3: I do think it's important to move.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's important to move.
Speaker 1: Fast, Yeah seriously, Like like that is a very constrained timeline,
Speaker 1: like everybody has to be, but that means it's also
Speaker 1: important to move respectfully, right, because like, if we just
Speaker 1: blow each other shit up, because yet people assume that
Speaker 1: migrant communities have somehow not been advocating for themselves in
Speaker 1: each other for centuries, then we're not going to have
Speaker 1: time to organize because we're going to be dealing with
Speaker 1: that shit. And I've seen that so much just personally, right,
Speaker 1: Like having been involved for some time in migrant advocacy
Speaker 1: and seeing folks like pop in and tell us how
Speaker 1: to do everything. It's tiresome, and I understand that you'll
Speaker 1: want to help, but yeah, if this is something that
Speaker 1: like you're organizing around, super easy to find those organizations
Speaker 1: to be like, how can I help?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's also such a good like this fight
Speaker 3: in particular is such a good vehicle for fighting.
Speaker 2: For abolition overall.
Speaker 3: As someone who's been saying abolish ice for years, it
Speaker 3: is amazing to see how much traction that phrase has gotten,
Speaker 3: especially over the last six months and We can't just
Speaker 3: be fighting against you know, preventing.
Speaker 2: New ICE facilities.
Speaker 3: We need to be fighting for shutting down all ICE
Speaker 3: facilities and for abolishing ICE as an institution. We've been
Speaker 3: around before ICE, and we will be around after ICE.
Speaker 3: As you know, as an agency, ICE has only been
Speaker 3: around since two thousand and three. Sure there was a predecessor,
Speaker 3: there was the i INS, but I mean it didn't
Speaker 3: operate in nearly the type of way that ICE does
Speaker 3: now as this you know, law enforcement agency. And even
Speaker 3: before Trump, like ICE was still a really you know,
Speaker 3: horrible like a horrible yeah, yeah, agency, And so yeah,
Speaker 3: I think it's important to continue to you know, point
Speaker 3: these things out while also you know, welcoming people into
Speaker 3: the fight and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and pushing them, pushing them further.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's really it's really important. Like I
Speaker 1: think we have to rebut the assumption that this is
Speaker 1: an aberration and we can fix it and go back
Speaker 1: to normal, because normal was bad and you just couldn't
Speaker 1: see it because it wasn't on your screen, right, Like
Speaker 1: children died in outdoor attention under Biden. I saw people
Speaker 1: suffer im mentally in outdoor attention Underbiden. Like we don't
Speaker 1: want to go back to that either. And I think
Speaker 1: it's really important that when we build these coalitions we
Speaker 1: build them with that in mind, that like, we're organizing
Speaker 1: very quickly, but also we're in this for the long horn,
Speaker 1: until everybody's free. Is there anything that you'd like to
Speaker 1: leave people with resources or a bit of advice, any
Speaker 1: like closing words to share with him?
Speaker 2: Abolish ize? It's all I got perfect. It Could Happen
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