Heath Haussamen
My spouse, Sarah Silva, was on the frontlines in the fight to resist Donald Trump’s deportation efforts during his first term.
It was difficult, to say the least.
I remember listening to Sarah trying to convince the local Catholic bishop, during a phone call in early 2017, to allow a retreat center to offer sanctuary to a man ICE was seeking.
The bishop didn’t want to get involved, but Sarah has a gift for prophetic speech and can out-Bible most religious leaders, at least when it comes to social justice. She pushed hard, leaving the bishop with sharp words about what scripture commanded him to do.
The next day, the bishop agreed to provide sanctuary. The Las Cruces diocese was the first in the United States to do so in decades.
Sarah, who was running the organizing group N.M. CAFe at the time, also led a protest of ICE’s immigration raids in front of the federal courthouse in Las Cruces in February 2017. People marched down the middle of a street and then sat, blocking traffic. That led to a brief confrontation with local police and was a forceful objection to the raids in our communities.
Three months later, while Sarah was on sabbatical, CAFe led people to temporarily block a U.S. Border Patrol station in Las Cruces in a massive display of civil disobedience. Among those disrupting access to the facility were then state-Rep. Bill McCamley and Johana Bencomo, who worked for CAFe at the time and is now Las Cruces’ mayor pro tem.
These actions took immense courage — and yet, because the Trump team has spent four years thinking through how to eliminate roadblocks to its efforts, resisting Trump’s plans for mass deportation is going to require even more bravery during his new term in office.
No more safe spaces
The Trump Administration on Tuesday rescinded longstanding prohibitions against ICE and Border Patrol enforcing immigration law at “sensitive locations” including schools, churches and hospitals.
This means agents can wait outside a school and arrest a parent who is dropping off their child.
Agents can pull someone out of a hospital bed and place them in custody.
They can raid religious facilities that are sheltering immigrants, like the retreat center that provided sanctuary to migrants in Las Cruces during Trump’s first term.
The protected places under the policy that was rescinded this week also included “playgrounds and childcare centers, food banks, domestic violence shelters and homeless shelters,” the news organization El Paso Matters reported.
The “sensitive locations” policy was “meant to ensure that ICE officers and agents exercise sound judgment when enforcing federal law at or focused on sensitive locations and make substantial efforts to avoid unnecessarily alarming local communities.”
No more. The Trump team has learned from its past efforts. I got an up-close view of how the sensitive locations policy hampered their villainy during the first term. It’s no surprise that they rescinded the policy.
This time, unrestrained chaos, fear and “alarm” are some of the primary weapons in the Trump Administration’s arsenal.
Local officials under threat
Trump is threatening local officials who refuse to cooperate. The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday that it will prosecute them for “harboring an immigrant in the United States illegally, failing to share information about a person’s immigration status with the federal government and conspiracy,” the Washington Post reported.
These are crimes punishable with prison time, but the threat may not hold up in court. New Mexico’s Department of Justice issued guidance stating that under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, “the federal government cannot ‘compel the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program,’ or force state employees to enforce federal law.” Nothing in state law requires cooperation either, the DOJ said.
Still, the threat is real, and it’s chilling. Many cities, counties and school districts in New Mexico and elsewhere refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities. A number of state governments don’t participate in some or all federal deportation efforts. New Mexico is on that list.
Many law enforcement agencies understand that federal immigration enforcement is not their job, and that participating undercuts their actual job of keeping their communities safe.
If folks believe local police will report them to ICE, they will be less likely to report crime. They’ll live in the shadows and be more vulnerable to domestic violence, rape, robbery and other types of exploitation.
This is true not only of people who are living here without legal status, but also of those who live with such folks or have undocumented family members. It’s true to some extent of U.S. citizens who are adjacent to immigrant communities, especially given Trump’s unconstitutional push to end birthright citizenship.
These are our neighbors. They live in and contribute to our communities. They pay taxes.
And our federal government is coming for them.
We cannot let government agencies like school districts and the state’s labor department share information with immigration authorities. We cannot allow our local law enforcement agencies like sheriffs to aid in these immoral deportation efforts.
This is still a democracy
There will be a need for protest and direct action like Sarah and others carried out in 2017. At the moment, it’s critical to reach out to our local and state elected officials.
If they oppose cooperation with federal immigration authorities, thank them and encourage them to hold the line. Ask them to review their policies, if needed, and strengthen their efforts to resist.
If they are on the fence, urge them to stand up for local communities and refuse to cooperate with the Trump Administration.
If they are participating in the identification, detention and deportation of people living in our communities, make it difficult for them to keep doing that. Urge them to reconsider. Flood their voicemails, emails and mailboxes with messages. Text them. Write to them on social media. Show up at local government meetings and speak during public input. Use your First Amendment rights to speak and protest.
The United States is still a democracy. It’s critical that your government officials hear from you. Exercising that right is how we will preserve our rights.
Trump is going to make it incredibly difficult for state and local officials to oppose his will. Those who want to do the right thing will need all the help and encouragement we can offer.