Why should I join the 6/9 protest?
By now if you've been following the news, you've no doubt seen the reports of protests in LA turning violent, as SEIU President David Huerta was injured and then detained by ICE on Friday after being released from the hospital. Now President Trump has ordered the National Guard to go to LA and quell the protests against ICE's campaign to round up and deport immigrants, many of whom have been deported to prison complexes abroad without due process and in defiance of court orders.
Mass 50501 stands in solidarity with David Huerta and SEIU and will be asking you to make a difficult decision: to call out of classes or work to make it to an emergency rally tomorrow afternoon from 1:30 PM - 3 PM. For many of us (including those of us in leadership roles) this is not an easy ask: we have jobs, we have kids, and we have other obligations that make it easier said than done to call out sick or take a day off. We're not rich, so losing our jobs or potentially jeopardizing our career trajectory would be devastating. All of us are volunteers who do this while trying to keep our day jobs and our only financial support. Know that we're in the same boat. We're struggling, too, and we struggled ourselves in deciding whether we should take this drastic step ourselves, much less ask it of you.
Here's why we ultimately decided that things have gotten so dire that we're risking more than we ever have to attend this rally, and why we ask you to consider the same. As we wrote back in April, Trump has been trying to find excuses for months to invoke the Insurrection Act. And it’s no secret that Massachusetts is in his crosshairs. He's been waging war against Harvard and cutting federal funding to Massachusetts due to its sanctuary status. Massachusetts generally, and the Greater Boston Area specifically, were put on a list that the administration threatened to use to prioritize what areas they retaliate against next for their willingness to stand up for the due process rights of immigrants in our country. While DHS later took down the list, there's been no indication that they’ve stopped relying on the list behind the scenes, and no indication that they are any less interested in coming after Boston and the rest of Massachusetts soon. Tom Homan said “I’m coming to Boston. I’m bringing hell with me.” Make no mistake: they may have found an excuse to go after California first, but Massachusetts is not far behind. And if they can't catch us in acts of violence, they'll no doubt manufacture the conditions they need to do so. This wouldn't be the first time the alt-right hired agitators to give them the pretext to crack down on movements they don't like.
And to be clear, there are very significant reasons why Massachusetts, along with California and other states, have been so focused on protesting ICE raids. ICE hasn't been limiting its roundups to violent criminals; ICE hasn’t been limiting its roundups to undocumented immigrants; and ICE hasn't been limiting its roundups to non-U.S. citizens. And to this day it's difficult for us to know how many people have been unjustly deported, because the Trump Administration refuses to provide any information to explain its basis for deporting these people, and because all of them are being deported without due process. We recently published a piece on how this has been terrorizing people in our communities, even those who are themselves citizens or permanent residents. And if none of this has affected you personally yet, know that your time is coming: Trump explicitly stated he wants to send U.S. citizens to CECOT, and he’s already testing the waters of how much he can strain U.S. laws to argue that dissent is a literal threat against Trump. And if that doesn't work, he wants to undermine birthright citizenship—and if he can do that to anyone, he can do that to you.
So people across the state are demanding the due process rights of immigrants now. Because they know if we don't guarantee due process for non-U.S. citizens, it's only a matter of time before Trump comes after U.S. citizens. And if he comes after you next, they'll be able to pick you up off the street, put you on a plane to El Salvador or South Sudan, and forget about you—without giving you a chance to go home and grab your passport or birth certificate, without giving you access to a lawyer or letting you call your family so that they can secure one for you, and without letting you see a judge so that you can plead your case. This is not just a thing Trump says to rile up the left, this is the thing he's literally doing right now to thousands of immigrants, and what he’s explicitly stated he’d like to do to millions of citizens. To be blunt, LA is our Reichstag Fire moment. If we do not act now, we are next. And if we're next, we'll lose more than our jobs.
Now, maybe you understand and agree with all that, but your question is, how does a protest solve that problem? And isn't a protest going to give them what they want, in fact? Why risk your job for something that's not going to stop Trump from sending troops here? Know that this rally is not simply to protest the National Guard being called to LA. This rally is to put pressure on our government in Massachusetts to take steps immediately to protect us from a similar fate, while we still have time to brace for the impact. This rally is to demand that Governor Healey use her executive order powers to stop the National Guard and other military forces from entering Massachusetts or being activated by the federal government here, as well as to call on the National Guard on Massachusetts’ behalf, to prevent Trump trying to call on it himself to suppress dissent in our state. It is imperative that our governor and other officials see that we will stand with them in solidarity if they take these steps to protect us from the wrath of the federal government. It is imperative that they see that we fully understand the gravity of the situation and are willing to rise to the occasion—and that we expect them to do the same. If we don't think this is important enough to take a risk, how do we convince our officials to take a risk that could turn Trump's wrath on them, personally?
All of this is why, for those of us in Mass 50501, turning out tomorrow is worth the potential risks of taking the time away from work and school. Is it completely unfair that we’re all being put in a position where we need to make difficult decisions like this for the sake of our democracy? Absolutely. It is frustrating and unfair and difficult to navigate this new reality where we are facing real, existential threats to our democracy and our safety. While we all wish we could live in less eventful times, Trump is unfortunately trying his hardest to force them upon us. In the midst of this difficult reality, “all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” We at Mass 50501 are deciding that in these fraught times, we are putting as much as we can on the line to protect our communities, our families and friends, and our democracy at large. We hope that we’ll find you standing side by side with us.
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