Families Belong Together

We’re going to keep fighting to end family detention, because families belong together and families should be free.

Our outrage and actions forced Trump to back down from the crisis he created. But under Trump’s latest executive order, ICE will still cage kids. Their parents are still caged, indefinitely. This is why it’s never been enough to fight only for kids or Dreamers, without also fighting to free fathers or mothers or grandparents. Freeing families means we must resist Trump and Sessions’ plans to cast our neighbors as criminals. We must #AbolishICE — defund and disband an agency that was created 15 years ago specifically to criminalize, detain and deport our neighbors. 

Behind the escalating raids, the so-called “zero tolerance” for asylum seekers, the imprisonment of people for up to 20 years for crossing a border, the labeling and persecution of Black activists as extremists, and more–is a white supremacist strategy to destroy our solidarity and line the pockets of big corporations and billionaires at the expense of working people white, Black, and brown.

Our strategy is to form alliances across race, to create government for a world where all of us can live free, no matter what we look like, where we come from, or what families we choose. To get there, we must create connection and imagination. When we hear of kids in detention crying for their parents, we must help more of our friends and family hear their own kids. We must cross bars and borders and see ourselves on the other side, too. We must reimagine Border Patrol as a humanitarian force that rescues migrants fleeing from the poverty, political violence, and environmental disasters stoked by the U.S. In order to free kids, to free families, we must free ourselves and act. Now.

 

National Day of Action, Saturday June 30th. We encourage you to go to the 11am rally at the ICE detention center in Richmond, highlighting local families separated there. A big march in San Francisco and activities for kids in Oakland are also noteworthy. See all Bay Area actions. 

Caravan to the Border, Monday July 2nd. Join a caravan Sunday through Tuesday or Wednesday to Mijente’s family-friendly action in San Diego.

Bay Area Nonviolent Direct Action, Monday July 2nd. Local action to coincide with border actions. To join, attend the training on Sunday, July 1st, 2-5pm at California Nurses Association, 155 Grand Ave, Oakland.

Family-centered Actions. Join playdate actions on July 2nd and 10th. July 1-7 is Mamas’ Week of Action, with actions that you can organize at home.