Mass 50501 community reflections on ICE detentions
Who must be taken for your life to change? For the subtle fear in the back of your mind to break though? For the doubts about “them” to fall away: the rules they may or may not have broken, the flaws they may or may not have? Is it someone a thousand miles away? Someone from your hometown? Someone from work? Your neighbor? Your friend? Your family? Who would have to be taken for it to stop being about “them,” and start being about “us”?
The past few months have answered these questions for many in our community. We live in anger and fear, but also in courage and hope. We the People see ourselves and our families in Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, Andry José Hernández Romero, the prisoners spelling SOS with their bodies at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility, the American children deported before their father or lawyer could speak to them, and those whose names or stories we do not know. For many of us, we engage with these stories in isolation; the vulnerable are unable to speak and the privileged struggle to effectively apply their voice. Today, we come together to share some of our reactions to the ICE kidnappings and the dismantling of our rights.
In sharing the stories of our community, we hope to build solidarity. The Trump Administration and ICE have trampled on the free speech and due process rights of every person in this country. You are not alone in your fears or your anger, and you will not be alone in your resistance. Alongside personal reflections from community members, we’re calling on our readers to come together: volunteer with and donate to organizations helping those most at risk, inform your local community of available resources, and call/write to your local, state, and federal government to let them know we hold them accountable. Below are just some of the personal reflections from the Mass 50501 community in response to this new wave of ICE abductions.
“This new level of enforcement for anti-immigration policies is absurd. I’m fortunate that my husband is lawfully present and working with a lawyer while we wait for the conditions on his green card to be lifted—or for him to take the test for naturalization. Still, it’s deeply unsettling to see stories of lawfully present people, even citizens, being detained for hours or days before their documentation is even considered. The treatment described in their stories is horrific.
It’s especially disturbing because my husband has brown skin and speaks English with an accent. There seems to be a bigger target on people who look or sound like him. He drives around with photocopies of his green card, extension letter, Social Security card, and passport from his home country—yet I still can’t feel confident he’d even have the chance to show them.
I also struggle to talk openly about how I feel or even bring up this issue, because his lawyer advised me not to comment about or against ICE on social media. It’s so hard to stay silent about something that matters this much to me. My heart aches for other immigrants and their families who aren't in as fortunate a position as we are.”
- Anon Y. Mous
“My mother’s father emigrated from Calabria, Italy, to the U.S. at the age of 13 in 1903. He served in World War I. My grandfather was probably naturalized during his service in the war, but we don’t know for sure. My mother’s mother emigrated from Naples, Italy, at the age of 13 in 1918. They were married in 1922. We have no naturalization paperwork for her, but my mother remembers helping her study for it. If the immigration policies that are in play right now were in force after my grandparents were married, is it possible that my grandmother would have been deported and separated from my grandfather? My mother was the youngest of 6 children, and that could have meant ripping the children away as well.
My father’s father emigrated from Abruzzo, Italy, some time in the 1920s to work in the coal mines in Pennsylvania, leaving his wife behind (though he did visit because my father was born in 1934). My father and my grandmother arrived in 1936—my father was age 2. We have no naturalization papers for my grandparents or for my father. My father entered the U.S. Air Force at the age of 18, served in Vietnam, and retired as a Lt. Colonel in 1977. It is likely that he would have been naturalized when he served in the Air Force. If the immigration policies in play today were in force in the early 1930s, would my grandmother and my father have been deported? For that matter, if my grandfather was not a citizen, could he have been deported at any point?
Like many of today’s recent immigrants, there is a history of discrimination against Italians in the U.S., especially during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since my grandparents and my father immigrated through Ellis Island and were therefore “vetted,” they considered their status safe. But what if the policies had changed before they became naturalized? Would they have been deported? Or worse, put in prison, which is what is happening now? The immigrants of today aren’t any different from those that came here before them. They are simply trying to improve their lives.”
- EyesWideOpen
“Last year, a friend told me they were scared to be seen at protests because they were not a U.S. citizen. I brushed off their fear as hyperbole. Today, I wonder if my faith in this country’s laws was naive. As I stood among hundreds in Powder House Square the day after Rümeysa Öztürk was kidnapped, reality had only begun to settle. Many of those around me were student visa holders, green card holders, and citizens who had naturalized only months earlier. Several covered their faces and wore nondescript clothing. Present while afraid, they knew their power in the collective. They knew that at that moment, we needed them.
While it is clear my community maintains a strong tenacity to uphold our rights, conversations with friends have become increasingly bleak. Some have started keeping their U.S. passports on them at all times. Others hesitate when they leave their house. Even more struggle to make it through a normal day in abnormal times. We’ve joked about how white you would need to look to be safe, and what it will mean when that no longer matters.
The Trump kidnappings, free speech violations, and due process violations are disgusting. Each day comes with news of nauseating new realities, horrors I thought impossible. I used to think there would be a single tipping point: one day Trump would clearly defy the Constitution, the haze would drop, we would flood the streets together, and we would stay until things changed. I had been part of protest movements before, but I was sure this would somehow be different. Instead, I was disoriented. My tipping point came and went without fanfare, and the real work of resistance began. In the past few weeks, I’ve seen history fold together. The work of past generations became closer, more real, and—despite all odds—more achievable. Together, we work to maintain our rights. We rely on each other and the infrastructure and knowledge built through decades. Who the Trump administration releases will depend on our collective pushback, and I will not let our vulnerable fight alone.”
- Anonymous
“A man flees his home country to the U.S. for a better life. While there, he meets the love of his life, starts a family in Maryland, and gets training for a different type of work, so that he can provide for that family. He never becomes a naturalized citizen, but never has any reason to think he would need to become one. Until March 15, 2025.
This isn’t a description of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a man who was illegally deported back to El Salvador as part of the Trump Administration’s ongoing attempts to vilify and purge our country of so-called dangerous and illegal immigrants. This describes my father, a lawful immigrant who has never questioned his ability to exist freely in this country until recently. After Garcia, who lived maybe a stone’s throw away from my childhood home, was rounded up and sent to a high-security prison complex well-known for a litany of human rights abuses, it’s a question that my father now considers regularly: is the country where he’s spent most of his life turning its back on him?
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia fled from El Salvador to the U.S. as a teen to escape gang violence and intimidation. While he could not apply for asylum because of a technicality, he cleared an even higher bar by convincing an immigration judge to grant him a withholding of removal: preventing the U.S. government from deporting him back to El Salvador and granting him a legal right to stay in the U.S. He received a work permit, he settled in the suburbs of Maryland, and he met his wife, with whom he raised three kids.
My father’s story is not quite the same; he was not escaping gang violence, simply trying to build a life in a country that let him be what he wanted to be, and to marry who he wanted to marry. He also became a permanent resident, which gives him a stronger right to remain in the U.S. But given the due process violations that have been rampant in this administration’s attempt to send as many people to CECOT as possible, we’re all wondering whether his status will ultimately matter. If ICE picks up my father on the way to work, will they let him go home to pick up his green card? Would they let him call my mother or myself, to get it for him? Would he be given a hearing, where he could point out, on the record, that he has lawful status? Would ICE look up his status before deporting him? Or would he get the “Garcia” treatment: would ICE pick him up without a word to his family, sit him on a plane before a judge can meet him, and send him to a prison abroad, before anyone can verify whether or not they’ve made a mistake? And would Nayib Bukele also call my father a criminal and declare he’ll never return to the United States, even after the administration admits he shouldn’t have been deported in the first place?
Every time I talk to my father now, I talk as though that time could be the last. No family should have to deal with these injustices and this uncertainty. I work within this movement to try to prevent other families from ever having to.”
- Anonymous
Original Art by Mike B.
As we translate our concerns into actions, one of the best things that we can do is learn from and bolster the work of the people in our communities who have been working to protect immigrants long before our current crisis. Organizations like the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network and the MIRA Coalition have shared valuable information, including explanations of immigration rights and a hotline to call (617-370-5023) if you see ICE activity. We can help protect our friends and neighbors by making sure that those who are most at risk of ICE detention are aware of their legal rights and know how to best plan for their safety, including during higher-risk activities like international travel. If you have the resources, you should also support the efforts of these organizations: volunteer your time with them, donate to their operations, or ask them directly what other help you can offer.
In addition, we must continue to demand that our elected officials treat these ICE detentions as a threat to due process, our constitutional rights, and the safety of our communities. If someone from our community is unlawfully seized and detained by ICE, we should demand that our senators and representatives in Congress and on Beacon Hill personally visit those detained to verify their well-being and advocate for their fair treatment. When Sen. Van Hollen visited El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Sen. Markey and Reps. Pressley and McGovern visited Louisiana to meet with Rümeysa Öztürk, they demonstrated the seriousness of the situation by moving beyond their normal function as legislators and becoming direct actors; we need our representatives to continue to push back against the normalization of ICE abduction by refusing to allow business to continue as usual. The administration should expect that if ICE unlawfully seizes someone, their legislators will show up personally to ask questions, check on the detainee’s condition, and advocate for their fair treatment. This is the time for all of us, from residents of our communities to public servants who have taken an oath to defend our Constitution, to stand together to protect our friends and neighbors from being unlawfully seized and detained.
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