Immigrant advocacy organizations and activists are bracing for a crackdown from the federal government following threats from the Trump administration to root out and criminally prosecute non-profit groups it believes are sympathetic to “leftwing” politics.
Donald Trump and his closest allies have periodically threatened immigrant rights activists and nonprofits, including those that distribute food and water to migrants or provide immigrants with legal services, with arrest. But their rhetoric has been heightened in the days following the killing of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk this month.
Over the last week, JD Vance described civil rights groups as a “domestic terror movement”, while Stephen Miller, a top Trump aide and the architect of the US president’s mass deportation agenda, vowed that the administration would hold nonprofits, including immigrant-rights and police-reform organizations, “criminally liable” for what he baselessly described as “coordinated attacks” on Ice agents.
And on Tuesday, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice) followed up with a warning: “Anyone – regardless of immigration status – who assaults an Ice officer will face federal felony assault charges and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.” The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), meanwhile, has expanded its definition of “threats” to include the filming Ice operations.
For Brandon Lee, communications director of the immigrant rights non-profit the Illinois Coalition For Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) the threats represented “yet another moment where the Trump administration is attempting to curtail speech, curtail organizing, to scare our people”.
“This is another example of the atmosphere of fear that the administration is trying to create,” said Lee.
Advocates and activists told the Guardian that they are advising staff and volunteers to practice caution while assisting immigrants and filming raids, while also maintaining that they will not “comply in advance” and give up their first amendment rights to document immigration enforcement.
ICIRR, which organizes teams to observe raids and help the families of those affected access legal aid and other resources, has always “been operating within the boundaries of the law”, Lee said.
“In our rapid-response teams, our role is not to intervene in Ice operations. Our team members are aware of their rights to film in public spaces, to share information,” he said. The organization tends to send out volunteers in pairs or groups, and advises them to maintain a distance from officers.
Lee said the latest rhetoric from the Trump administration felt “heightened”, but added groups like his have been dealing with these threats for months. “It’s not as if these tactics are different from what they’ve been threatening throughout the year so far,” said Lee. “It’s not the first time they’ve threatened to go after nonprofits. It’s not the first time that they’ve threatened to go after charitable foundations.”
Federal agents have already, increasingly, been arresting elected officials, protestors and bystanders at immigration raids and detention centers. In New York on Thursday, Ice arrested at least 71 people – including Democratic lawmakers and activists – who were protesting at a federal building where Ice has been detaining immigrants. Lawmakers had requested access to Ice detention cells, while another group had attempted to block the garage doors typically used by Ice to move vans carrying detained immigrants.
The arrests were part of a pattern of aggressive tactics used against protesters and lawmakers seeking to shed light on conditions inside Ice facilities and demonstrate against the agency’s raids.
In May, New Jersey congresswoman LaMonica McIver was charged with assaulting or impeding federal agents as they arrested the Newark mayor Ras Baraka, who was there with a group of lawmakers trying to observe a detention center. In legal filings, McIver has said the indictment overstates the moments of physical contact between McIver and agents arresting the mayor, and notes that McIver’s actions were part of her authorized oversight duties as a congresswoman.
Several charges against protestors have ultimately been dropped or proven to have been exaggerated. A Guardian review of cases brought against anti-Ice protesters in Los Angeles this summer found that several charges were based on false or misleading statements from law enforcement.
This week, a jury found Brayan Ramos-Brito, a protester in Los Angeles, not guilty of assaulting a border agent, after footage from a witness – and published by the Guardian – showed an agent forcefully shoving Ramos-Brito, whereas there was no footage of Ramos-Brito assaulting the officer.
“We’re in an environment and you see a level of aggressiveness [from Ice and other federal agencies] that perhaps you haven’t seen before,” said Armando Gudino, executive director of the Los Angeles Worker Center Network, a group that advocates for immigrant workers in the city.
And, Gudino said, he expects Ice and the DHS could ramp up arrests of advocates and activists. “The unfortunate assassination of this individual, we feel, is only going to compound the challenges that we’ve been experiencing,” he said. “We’re seeing officials, however opportunistically, are blaming immigrants and advocates for the murder of Charlie Kirk.”
But many immigrant rights and civil rights groups said that at least for now, they are planning to continue their work as normal.
“We’ll continue to serve. We’ll continue to follow. And we’ll continue to do the best that we can under the circumstances. And, you know, we can only hope that, you know, justice and fairness will prevail,” said Melissa L Marantes, executive director of the Orlando Center for Justice, which provides legal aid for immigrants and their families.
“What gives me a little bit of hope is that – at least in the nonprofit social justice and immigrant justice movement here in Texas – I think we’re tougher than big corporate media and big law,” said Dustin Rynders, legal director, Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit that advocates for a legal advocacy organization. “We’re all fighters.”
And for some groups, particularly those who organized during Trump’s first time in office, the crackdown feels all too familiar.
Project South, an advocacy group based in Atlanta, has for decades helped mobilize communities in the south to push for policy changes, organize protests and provide legal support. In 2020, the group represented an Ice nurse whistleblower who said immigrant women detained at an immigration jail in Georgia were being subjected to non-consensual gynecological procedures, including hysterectomies.
Project South has learned from its experiences from that period, said Azadeh Shahshahani, the legal and advocacy director for the group. Back in 2017, Project South and other groups were surveilled by Ice after they sought to raise awareness about a suicide at a Georgia detention center.
“Instead of cowering in fear, we will continue to organize our communities and protect and defend each other,” Shahshahani added.
José Olivares and Alexandra Villarreal contributed reporting