ICE

Megan, Rural Organizing - Rural people across the country are organizing to stop the expansion of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities and coming together to protect their neighbors. In fact, taking action to support our immigrant neighbors has been one of the most galvanizing topics for our rural members that we’ve seen in our decade of organizing on a wide range of economic and civil rights issues. In just a week we’ve convened, trained, and facilitated information sharing with hundreds of rural leaders across the country in strategically important and underserved locations. It shouldn’t be surprising — immigrants ARE rural America. Immigrants are our friends, neighbors, and co-workers — in fact international immigration accounted for 87% of nationwide population growth over the past year.

You may not see it on the news, but brave rural Americans in the very strongholds MAGA Republicans take for granted are standing up and taking action against Stephen Miller and the Trump administration’s deportation machine. These massive facilities designed to warehouse people are extremely controversial and invoke many negative connotations. In fact, experts in the subject, like author Andrea Pitzer, refer to them as “concentration camps.”