April 28, 2025 - Three Days to May Day
Courage in the face of mass deportation horrors, blue state resistance, Congress is back, and more
If you have questions, comments, and especially submissions for actions, please email us at roganslisttips@gmail.com!
IMMIGRATION HORROR STORIES AND POPULAR RESISTANCE
Even by Trump 2.0 standards, the stories we’ve heard from the deportation machine over the last few days have been unbearably heartbreaking and disgusting. A toddler and U.S. citizen trafficked out of the country with no meaningful due process even as her father frantically petitioned the courts to protect her. Two other U.S. citizen children ages 4 and 7 similarly banished – the younger of whom is suffering from metastatic cancer. The wife of an on-duty Coast Guardsman pulled out of her home by ICE and detained, with the cooperation of the U.S. Coast Guard. Beker Rengifo, a young man from Venezuela legally in the United States on humanitarian parole, abducted after a routine traffic stop for a busted tail light. 213 people, including American citizen children as young as a year old, detained for making a wrong turn on the same bridge in Detroit. 1,700 people enduring a lack of food and water, unsanitary conditions and medical neglect in a detention facility in Miami built to hold 600. A Milwaukee circuit court judge named Hannah Dugan arrested by the FBI, charged with obstructing ICE – by demanding a judicial warrant and blocking someone from being arrested inside her courtroom. On and on, ceaselessly and mercilessly.
But amidst it all, some heartening signs. Judge Dugan’s bravery and willingness to use her position to do what’s right. Growing horror even by Trump-appointed judges at the cruelty of these removals. Congressional Democrats using their voices. Hundreds rallying within hours in Milwaukee and in Flathead, Montana. This is a battle for real people’s lives and our nation’s soul, but it is a battle we have joined. And we will not back down.
Here's some ways we can help today:
📝 Let’s send a note of thanks and solidarity to Judge Dugan. She can be written at the Milwaukee County Courthouse at 901 North 9th Street, Milwaukee, WI, 53233 or called at (414) 278-4548. 📝
📞 Let’s reach out to our members of Congress to demand they protect American children, Coast Guard wives and all the detainees at Krome by voting against any bill that pours the funding Trump wants into mass deportation. We can use this call script from 5Calls or language from this Resistbot message. (If we’ve already signed the latter, we can find a similar message here.) 📞
🔴 Let’s continue to print, carry and distribute Know Your Rights cards like these so that everyone is prepared to deal with ICE, and spread the word about the Immigrant Defense Hotline (617-988-0606; hotline@lawyersforcivilrights.org) and other pro bono legal resources from the organization Lawyers for Civil Rights. 🔴
🤝 Let’s consider a donation or volunteering with an immigration group near us or a rapid response hotline to track Trump’s deportation force and support those they come after. 🤝
🫡 MISSION: STOP THE MEDICAID KILLER BUDGET. RESOURCES: PROCEDURAL STALLING. 🫡
Congress is back in Washington for the beginning of a crucial moment for the MAGA Medicaid killer budget. They are aiming to have the bill on Trump’s desk by Memorial Day, and this week we will see the beginnings of committee mark-ups on various parts of the reconciliation bill. (We can read Cat Rowland’s explainer on this part of the process here and find scripts, talking points and volunteer opportunities here.)
The GOP’s goal here is speed – rushing through before public anger gets any worse and there’s too much focus on the devastating cuts they’re proposing. Our goal is to shine the spotlight and slow them down. So this is a perfect moment for Democrats to start slowing things down with every procedural tactic available, and in particular the multiple methods for disrupting House committee work identified by Democratic staff in the “No Business As Usual” memo. 🤳 Let’s reach out to our members of Congress, especially our representatives, and tell them to pull out all the stops. We can find scripts and language here. 🤳
💙 BLUE STATES MUST USE THEIR POWER 💙
Trump has the full authority of the national government at his disposal, and he is gleefully abusing it to force all Americans to live by his rules. But the federal system means blue states have power too, and with Trump losing strength in the polls and repeatedly folding in the face of pushback it’s time to start using it as forcefully and as creatively as possible. We’ve seen several of our elected officials doing just that. Let’s encourage our own governors and legislators to follow their example:
Governor J.B. Pritzker is leading the way on a boycott of El Salvador, ordering Illinois’ public pension funds and procurement agencies to investigate any investments or contracts they have with companies there while the Salvadoran government runs Trump’s concentration camps. This follows the example of states divesting from South Africa during apartheid, and Pritzker is hoping more states will join in. 💰 Let’s reach out to our governors and legislators and encourage them to divest from El Salvador as well. We can use language from this Resistbot message from our friend for emails and calls. 💰
Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut off federal funding from states and cities that won’t do his bidding, typically in extremely legally dubious ways. But that funding ultimately comes from Americans – much of it from the self-same blue states and cities they’re attempting to bully. New York State Senator and Working Families Democrat Jessica Ramos has introduced the RECOURSE Act (S6915) to push back – which as
writes would authorize the state to withhold payments due to the federal government if the Trump Administration illegally freezes funds appropriated to the state by Congress or a federal agency. New York would keep grant repayments and payroll taxes from state employees that they could use to cover for what Trump has stolen. 💰Let’s contact our legislators and governors and tell them we want them to support similar legislation in our state. We can find scripts and language here, or send them this Resistbot petition by texting SIGN PPNRRN to 50409. 💰
💵 ALIGNING OUR SPENDING WITH OUR VALUES 💵
Once we’ve encouraged our state governments not to spend our taxpayer money in a way that boosts the authoritarian agenda, we can focus on doing the same with our own purchases. Here’s multiple economic actions we can take right now:
BOYCOTTING EL SALVADOR: Alan Unell of Indivisible Eastside has written up how we can stop spending on products made in El Salvador – flagging multiple corporations with manufacturing there and providing a script to contact them and tell them we’re not doing business with them until they start speaking up. 🪙 We can find details and instructions here. 🪙
TAKING ON TARGET: Reverend Jamal Bryant, who launched the initial Target fast for Lent, is now calling for a full Target boycott over their broken promises on racial justice and rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion policies. We’re making ourselves noticed – Target just logged its 11th straight week of falling in-store traffic. 🎯 Let’s continue to stay out of the store and encourage those we know to do so too. We can take the pledge to be part of the effort here. 🎯
AVOIDING MAGA-FRIENDLY BUSINESSES: Trump supporters have set up a website called PublicSquare, which lists businesses that have voluntarily certified themselves as “anti woke.” It’s built to encourage customers to patronize these folks, but we can use it to decide where not to go. 🪙 Let’s check it out and find MAGA-friendly stores to flag near us here. 🪙
✊ MAY DAY IS COMING ✊
Authoritarianism is rising and so must we rise. We’re ready to hit the streets again this week for May Day Strong, with over 900 marches, rallies, visibilities, action tables, food drives and mutual aid events now scheduled in all 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico. Let’s do what we can to make this moment of protest against the anti-democratic billionaire agenda succeed:
💻 Sign up to join tomorrow night’s virtual warm-up rally at 8PM Eastern here 💻
📺 Figure out where we’ll be attending, and contact the news editor or assignment desk of at least one local media outlet to ask them to cover the event – we can forward them this form to get on the official press list 📺
🗣️ Make sure we ask at least one person who hasn’t protested before to join us! Anyone who told you they were sorry they missed out on Hands Off, this is their time! 🗣️
KEEPING AN EYE ON…
Just a thought. ICE agents take an oath to uphold the Constitution. Agents are expected to "perform our duties honorably and with dignity in a manner befitting the oath of office we are sworn to uphold". What if they do not? Cannot a court issue a ruling to all agents to clearly identify themselves as agents when making a stop, to read to person their rights, to not wear masks or hoodies, and that they, the agents, have a responsibility to ensure that detainees are handled in accordance with the law regardless of the instructions received from their superiors. That is, the agent is personally responsible to their oath and to any court rulings else they are subject to arrest. Sure, this will be explained away as a matter for HR, but contempt of court is punishable by arrest. Then, can a court send Federal Marshals to arrest individual agents?
What tools do courts have to hold individuals responsible for their actions? Where does banality of evil stop? When must a person who takes an oath refuse directions from their superior that goes against that oath?
If any reader has legal training I would appreciate comments.
The May Day march is on 03 May 2025. 😉