Yesterday, residents of Sackets Harbor, a small town in deep-red, rural New York, held a protest after ICE agents arrested three kids and their mother.
I'm so mad I didn't even make it to the end of this post. All I can say right now is I hope the day comes when Tom Homan and his family experience the worst of the gulag conditions he is imposing on innocent people.
Meanwhile, I remain inspired by a story that happened in my city during the first Trump administration. ICE agents had information about a family that was allegedly undocumented. They showed up at their house just after the father and son got in their van to go to work at a construction job. The agents had an administrative warrant, which meant they couldn't seize people from inside their vehicle or their home. So the two men were safe as long as they remained in the van but couldn't leave or go back inside. ICE told them they had to get out of the van, but fortunately neighbors who knew their rights under the law told them they didn't have to comply.
As soon as neighbors discovered what was going on, they formed a human shield around the van. Local police showed up to monitor but would not help ICE. Finally, after several hours, the ICE thugs left. The neighbors spirited the family out of the van and to a safe location.
This is the kind of resistance that is needed, and it works. It reminds me of your story about the church people in Bulgaria blocking the tracks to prevent Nazi deportations of Jews. It's also a reminder that Nazi behavior can and does happen here.
I'd love to write about that. Can you give me more info? And yeah I've been thinking about the priests — how THAT is the resistance that's needed, not waving a sign around.
The action by these neighbors made me prouder to be a Nashvillian than at any other time in the 45 years I've lived here. This is a blue city that dares to love and welcome immigrants in a red state whose governor and legislature hate them. "Hate" is not too strong a word here. There is a bill making its way through the legislature that would allow schools to turn away undocumented children. The chief sponsor, William Lamberth, to whom I have spoken about my religious opposition, openly acknowledges that his bill defies a Supreme Court decision; the goal, he says, is to get the issue back in front of a right-wing Supreme Court that will overturn the precedent. A version of the bill headed for a floor vote in the state Senate goes even further than Lamberth's bill; it would require schools to confirm the immigration status of all students, effectively making them an arm of ICE enforcement.
The Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) has been leading the fight. They should be able to help you in reporting what is happening here right now.
PS: After reading your piece yesterday, I found the contact info (wasn't hard) for the school principal in upstate New York from the school's website. I emailed him to thank him for spreading the story and taking a stand. I bet thousands of others did the same.
I love Nashville. And Memphis. The dynamic between blue cities in red states is really interesting. Thanks for sharing, I could use something inspiring right now!
Actually after watching the clips — this is not the blue part of Nashville, which is mostly hipsters and transplants from unaffordable blue cities, it's the poor part that I bet skews red.
Correct -- this is a working-class neighborhood that has not been penetrated yet by hipsters and young professionals looking for more affordable homes. The people who defended these migrants are as salt-of-the-earth as it gets.
Here is a story that inspires me. I shared it with a study group of Christians (actual Christians, not "evangelical" Christian Nationalists) who understandably felt overwhelmed after the election.
In 1940, the week after the French government surrendered to the Nazis, a Protestant pastor in a small town in southeastern France rallied his community with a sermon. He said that, whenever they were called to obey orders that were contrary to the Gospel, it was the duty of Christians to resist, using what he called "weapons of the spirit."
And that is what the people of this town, Chambon-sur-Lignon, did. They began sheltering both French Jews and German Jews who had come to France as refugees before the Nazi invasion. They didn't hide them in attics. They passed them off to local Vichy authorities as relatives who had been displaced from other parts of the country.
As word quietly spread, more Jews began making their way to Chambon-sur-Lignon. To accommodate them, the people enlisted villagers from neighboring towns. Catholics joined the Protestants in sheltering. They began an Underground Railroad to Switzerland. Eventually, there were as many Jews in the area as Christians.
It became impossible to keep such an operation secret. Inevitably, officials of the collaborationist Vichy government learned what was happening. Instead of reporting it to higher-ups, they decided to look the other way.
Though the area was far removed from fighting, there was a small presence of German soldiers in the general vicinity. Some of their officers discovered the operation. They, too, chose to keep the secret. In this way, they were part of what a documentary filmmaker 40 years later described as "a conspiracy of goodness" that turned even enemies into co-conspirators.
From May 1940 and June 1944, more than 5,000 Jews were protected in this "conspiracy." Not a single one was betrayed into the hands of the Nazis.
The filmmaker was named Pierre Sauvage. He had been born in Chambon-sur-Lignon in 1944. His parents were two of the Jews protected by the village. He came back to ask those still living why they had risked themselves for strangers who didn't share their religion. He was startled by the matter-of-fact simplicity of their answers: "It was the right thing to do," and "They needed our help."
The film is called "Weapons of the Spirit," and you can find it online. These were the same weapons mustered by the blue-collar residents who stopped ICE in Nashville, and they are the weapons all of us need to employ now, all across America.
There’s a current video of ICE agents breaking a car window when a woman with her 2 kids refused to submit to arrest. So this is a new lawlessness and apparently even SCOTUS is fine with this shit. Where the f are we??
This includes footage of someone taking an axe to a car window, claiming to be ICE, while the occupants of the car are recording everything and on the phone with their lawyer.
I'm so mad I didn't even make it to the end of this post. All I can say right now is I hope the day comes when Tom Homan and his family experience the worst of the gulag conditions he is imposing on innocent people.
Meanwhile, I remain inspired by a story that happened in my city during the first Trump administration. ICE agents had information about a family that was allegedly undocumented. They showed up at their house just after the father and son got in their van to go to work at a construction job. The agents had an administrative warrant, which meant they couldn't seize people from inside their vehicle or their home. So the two men were safe as long as they remained in the van but couldn't leave or go back inside. ICE told them they had to get out of the van, but fortunately neighbors who knew their rights under the law told them they didn't have to comply.
As soon as neighbors discovered what was going on, they formed a human shield around the van. Local police showed up to monitor but would not help ICE. Finally, after several hours, the ICE thugs left. The neighbors spirited the family out of the van and to a safe location.
This is the kind of resistance that is needed, and it works. It reminds me of your story about the church people in Bulgaria blocking the tracks to prevent Nazi deportations of Jews. It's also a reminder that Nazi behavior can and does happen here.
I'd love to write about that. Can you give me more info? And yeah I've been thinking about the priests — how THAT is the resistance that's needed, not waving a sign around.
YES! Here is a link to a piece that Margaret Renkl wrote in the New York Times in 2019. It contains links to other contemporary coverage of the story.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/opinion/ice-undocumented-migrants.html
Here is a YouTube video of a news report:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INbmJUWtDhA
Here is a report from Good Morning America. You can see the human chain protecting the man's son as he exited his van and ran into the house:
https://beta.goodmorningamerica.com/news/video/neighbors-work-protect-families-ice-raids-64520477
Here is the best of the TV news stories from a local station:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or1v12vvTdc
The action by these neighbors made me prouder to be a Nashvillian than at any other time in the 45 years I've lived here. This is a blue city that dares to love and welcome immigrants in a red state whose governor and legislature hate them. "Hate" is not too strong a word here. There is a bill making its way through the legislature that would allow schools to turn away undocumented children. The chief sponsor, William Lamberth, to whom I have spoken about my religious opposition, openly acknowledges that his bill defies a Supreme Court decision; the goal, he says, is to get the issue back in front of a right-wing Supreme Court that will overturn the precedent. A version of the bill headed for a floor vote in the state Senate goes even further than Lamberth's bill; it would require schools to confirm the immigration status of all students, effectively making them an arm of ICE enforcement.
The Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) has been leading the fight. They should be able to help you in reporting what is happening here right now.
PS: After reading your piece yesterday, I found the contact info (wasn't hard) for the school principal in upstate New York from the school's website. I emailed him to thank him for spreading the story and taking a stand. I bet thousands of others did the same.
I love Nashville. And Memphis. The dynamic between blue cities in red states is really interesting. Thanks for sharing, I could use something inspiring right now!
Actually after watching the clips — this is not the blue part of Nashville, which is mostly hipsters and transplants from unaffordable blue cities, it's the poor part that I bet skews red.
Correct -- this is a working-class neighborhood that has not been penetrated yet by hipsters and young professionals looking for more affordable homes. The people who defended these migrants are as salt-of-the-earth as it gets.
Here is a story that inspires me. I shared it with a study group of Christians (actual Christians, not "evangelical" Christian Nationalists) who understandably felt overwhelmed after the election.
In 1940, the week after the French government surrendered to the Nazis, a Protestant pastor in a small town in southeastern France rallied his community with a sermon. He said that, whenever they were called to obey orders that were contrary to the Gospel, it was the duty of Christians to resist, using what he called "weapons of the spirit."
And that is what the people of this town, Chambon-sur-Lignon, did. They began sheltering both French Jews and German Jews who had come to France as refugees before the Nazi invasion. They didn't hide them in attics. They passed them off to local Vichy authorities as relatives who had been displaced from other parts of the country.
As word quietly spread, more Jews began making their way to Chambon-sur-Lignon. To accommodate them, the people enlisted villagers from neighboring towns. Catholics joined the Protestants in sheltering. They began an Underground Railroad to Switzerland. Eventually, there were as many Jews in the area as Christians.
It became impossible to keep such an operation secret. Inevitably, officials of the collaborationist Vichy government learned what was happening. Instead of reporting it to higher-ups, they decided to look the other way.
Though the area was far removed from fighting, there was a small presence of German soldiers in the general vicinity. Some of their officers discovered the operation. They, too, chose to keep the secret. In this way, they were part of what a documentary filmmaker 40 years later described as "a conspiracy of goodness" that turned even enemies into co-conspirators.
From May 1940 and June 1944, more than 5,000 Jews were protected in this "conspiracy." Not a single one was betrayed into the hands of the Nazis.
The filmmaker was named Pierre Sauvage. He had been born in Chambon-sur-Lignon in 1944. His parents were two of the Jews protected by the village. He came back to ask those still living why they had risked themselves for strangers who didn't share their religion. He was startled by the matter-of-fact simplicity of their answers: "It was the right thing to do," and "They needed our help."
The film is called "Weapons of the Spirit," and you can find it online. These were the same weapons mustered by the blue-collar residents who stopped ICE in Nashville, and they are the weapons all of us need to employ now, all across America.
There’s a current video of ICE agents breaking a car window when a woman with her 2 kids refused to submit to arrest. So this is a new lawlessness and apparently even SCOTUS is fine with this shit. Where the f are we??
Germany 1938
On a related note (I almost hate to mention this. OTOH, I want it to go viral (and it hasn't yet))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnlj-wSI4Bg (more at https://newbedfordlight.org/lawyer-federal-agents-detain-guatemalan-man-29-with-no-criminal-record/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/15/metro/immigrant-arrest-new-bedford-light/ )
This includes footage of someone taking an axe to a car window, claiming to be ICE, while the occupants of the car are recording everything and on the phone with their lawyer.
For the love of god, how do these people sleep at night.
Unbelievable. MAGA sucks so bad.