The following is the text and video excerpts from speeches by Travis Morales and Reverend Este Gardner, who spoke at a protest in front of 26 Federal Plaza on August 1.
This is the epicenter of ICE/Gestapo Terror in New York City. Immigrants have been called in for court hearings only to be picked up by armed, masked agents waiting in the wings. Listen to the words of Reverend Este Gardner, an Episcopal Minister who was at 26 Federal Plaza on August 1 looking for one of her parishioners who had been kidnapped from a scheduled asylum hearing.
SHUT DOWN ICE…SHUT DOWN THE TRUMP FASCIST REGIME
Speech by Travis Morales of Refuse Fascism NYC
We stand before a black site of Trump’s ICE/Gestapo terror against immigrants in New York City. A center of abduction, detention, torture, and mass deportation. It is one of the many sites across the country carrying out the ethnic cleansing of Latino immigrants from this country – and spearheading a whole fascist program to make this a country ruled by open and violent white supremacy, vicious misogyny, and vile “America First” xenophobia. 2026 and 2028 are way too late. The Trump fascist regime must go now.
Tom Homan has promised to “flood the zone” with ICE agents in New York City while Trump has deployed the military to crush ICE protests in Los Angeles as a testing ground for all sanctuary cities, and has even threatened to de-naturalize and deport New York’s leading mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
And if you think that can’t happen here you are wrong. Going on with business as usual while all this is advancing is forfeiting your own morality and it is forfeiting the future of people here and around the world. History will be made on whether we in our millions allow this fascist regime to remain in power or not.
Imagine you are driving your child to school. As you pull up, a masked, uniformed, and gun toting man smashes your car window and drags you out as your child screams. Imagine you are a farmworker out in the filed picking strawberries. All of a sudden a gang of men are running toward you. You attempt to escape but they are too fast and tackle you, handcuff you, and drag you away. Imagine your two sons that are minors and U.S. citizens are sent to buy groceries. They never come home. You are frantic. Days later an attorney discovers they are being held by ICE in a basement with other men with no food and water and buckets instead of bathrooms and finally released after you bring all kind of documents to prove they are citizens. Their crime? They are Latino and fit the profile of a so-called illegal immigrant. Welcome to Trump’s fascist America.
Imagine that you walk into this building to attend your immigration hearing. You have applied for asylum. You have immigration papers. You are documented. You are “legal”. As you leave immigration court, you are grabbed by armed and masked thugs, showing no badges, no identification and no warrant. You are taken to the 10th floor and held for days and even weeks in filthy, overcrowded rooms with no beds, no showers, and no access to food, medical care, or due process. Or you are sent to a prison in the middle of the Everglades, in sweltering heat and swarms of mosquitoes, surrounded by alligators. You are deported to the country you fled, fearing for the lives of yourself and your family. Or you are deported to country with which you have no connection, to a country where you do not speak the language.
NO! We cannot accept this. We cannot comply.
Refuse Fascism calls on everyone who cares about justice to develop the networks and forms of nonviolent resistance that can grind the machinery of this fascist regime to a halt. This must aim for the day that must come soon when millions are in the streets day after day demanding the removal of this regime, creating a political crisis that prevents Trump from implementing his full program, governing the country, or holding onto power.
Trump MAGA fascism can and must be defeated by the tens of millions of decent people who feels revulsion every day that this continues. Defeating and ousting the Trump/MAGA fascist regime – through our unrelenting non-violent resistance and our voices in the streets demanding the removal of the Trump fascist regime – must become the priority of every decent person. We do not have to live this way.
In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America!
Trump Must Go Now!