Stand Up Now with the Immigrants
This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

The gloves are off.  The Trump/Pence Regime has launched an all-out comprehensive and qualitative leap in the implementation of a program of genocidal ethnic cleansing of immigrants – particularly targeting Black and Brown peoples.

This is a monumental horror in its own right, creating terror and untold suffering.  At the same time, it is a major escalation in the consolidation of a fascist America.  From Trump’s election campaign to the opening days of the regime, anti-immigrant, xenophobic nationalism has been the battering ram and lynchpin of the Trump/Pence Regime.  Trump’s “Wall” is a potent symbol and instrument of terror that concentrates the shattering of old norms and cementing Trump’s new order of: America First…Make America Great White Again.

This assault on immigrants must be stopped and the Trump/Pence Regime that is responsible  must be driven from power by the only force that could do this: the united nonviolent mass sustained struggle of hundreds of thousands and millions voting with their feet in the streets.

Now is the time for everyone to come to the defense of those first and most viciously under attack and strengthen the movement to drive the fascist Trump/Pence regime from power.

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This comprehensive and qualitative leap in the ethnic cleansing of immigrants is comprised of  these five major moves made in the last two weeks:

1. Further moves to end DACA protections for 800,000+ Dreamers (immigrants brought to this country as children) while cruelly bargaining their future in exchange for the lives of millions of other immigrants. Ending DACA would destroy the lives of nearly a million young people, shatter their families, and instill even greater terror among all immigrants. The Trump/Pence Regime threatens the sword of deportation over the Dreamers in order to drastically cut legal immigration and institute even more draconian military and vigilante terror against all immigrants.  Heartlessly, they seek to end immigration that reunites families. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party leadership acts like horse traders, only with human lives, collaborating and capitulating.  Any “deal” that trades the security of a section of the Dreamers for heightened terror and ethnic cleansing against other immigrants is not only immoral, it would feed the anti-immigrant juggernaut that would sooner or later come for all immigrants.
2. Targeted detentions, deportations, and threats of the same against outspoken immigrants rights leaders, including Ravi Ragbir, Jean Montrevil, and Maru Mora-Villalpando. The targeting of courageous leaders is a calculated tactic of the United States political police aimed at breaking the movements of the people. This must not be allowed.  These leaders must be defended and many more must step forward to fight right now.  Also, nine members of No More Deaths, an Arizona group that leaves water in the desert where thousands of immigrants have died, were arrested in recent days.
3. The looming threat of a major ICE raid in the Bay Area aimed at breaking the sanctuary city/state movement nationally. Reports state that U.S. immigration officials are preparing a major sweep in San Francisco and other Northern California cities aiming to arrest more than 1,500 undocumented people. The goal is not only to destroy the lives of countless immigrants and their families, but also to break any legal opposition from state and city officials anywhere.  This follows vicious coordinated dawn raids on immigrants working at 98 7-Elevens nationwide. Homeland Security said this was a “harbinger” of what is to come.
4. Ending of Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for 200,000 Salvadorans, 60,000 Haitians, 5,300 Nicaraguans, 1,000 Sudanese, and the threat/likely ending of TPS for 57,000 Hondurans very soon. Over a quarter of a million immigrants will face deportation or life in the terror of the shadows under Trump, families will be shattered, and deportation or “voluntary” departure will send these human beings into conditions of intense deprivation, violence, and in many cases certain death.
5. The racialization and white supremacy of this anti-immigrant program. This has been clear from the beginning, but took a leap when Trump viciously called for shutting down immigration from the Black and Brown nations of Haiti, El Salvador, and the continent of Africa – calling them “shitholes” – while welcoming more immigrants from (white) countries like Norway. This is a rallying cry to Trump’s fascist social base, a signal to the rising white-euro fascist nationalism around the world, and an actual genocidal program being concretely advanced with the full force of the most powerful state in the world.

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Is calling this the beginning of genocidal ethnic cleansing of Black and Brown immigrants too extreme?  Look at the numbers.  Look at children torn from parents. People sent to countries where they may face death.  What else do you call the criminal notion that where you were born, the color of your skin, and the language you speak should define whether you are regarded as human or not, whether you live or die?  What else do you call the view that any crime can be committed against those who are deemed “less than human” in the name of protecting the “real (ie: white, native-born) Americans,” meanwhile the U.S. can invade, torture, and even nuke other countries at will?

This MUST not be allowed.  It must be actively and effectively resisted in order to prevent the enormous suffering, terror, and advancement of actual genocide and ethnic cleansing against millions of immigrants and their families.

And, this must be resisted in a way that strengthens the movement to drive out the whole fascist Trump/Pence Regime through mass, sustained, nonviolent political protest.

Any attempt to wait it out, or to “save one’s fight” for some imagined bigger battle to come, is immoral delusion – it is trading away immigrants and losing one’s own humanity, and will put you in a worse place to fight the next attack.  It is imperative for everyone to come to the defense of those first and most viciously under attack. Now is the time for everyone to find the ways to show – in word and deed – that: In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America.

Everywhere, people need to meet, to plan and to ACT together – on campuses, among the faith community, by prominent artists and musicians, and all throughout society.  We need symbols of defiance taken up by hundreds of thousands and even millions, and protests, marches, and other acts of political resistance. Over the next weeks the world must see, the powers-that-be must feel, that people in this country will not allow them to take our brothers and sisters.

Refuse Fascism is calling on people to get organized to resist and for diverse organizations to talk to and really work with each other, to build much needed unity to stop this terror.  We, as RefuseFascism.org, invite and urge everyone who is outraged and concerned to reach out to us, strategize with us, and make big plans to STOP this nightmare and get organized to drive out the Trump/Pence Regime.

This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

In the Name of Humanity We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America!

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