Beloved Family… Donald Trump has declared war on the people. In the few weeks since his inauguration, we have witnessed horrifying stories of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids carried out under his administration’s orders to round up undocumented people. These raids have taken place in schools, at public transit stops, in grocery stores, and at homes – spaces where we should all be free and safe.
These racist attacks predominantly target our Latinx relatives, and we have seen repeated attempts by this administration to pit Black and Brown communities against one another. Let us be clear: Black Lives Matter Grassroots will never abandon our undocumented family, nor will we forget that most African Americans arrived to this country, falsely named as chattel, by the same colonial forces that drew false borders.
Black people also continue to be a global people; anti-immigrant policies harm our continental African, Haitian, Caribbean, Afro-Latinx, Arab, and other Black migrant siblings, who have been targeted by ICE raids in places like Florida and Ohio. In the ultimate act of hypocrisy, the Indigenous people of this land have been racially profiled by ICE and held unlawfully on suspicion of being Latinx.
Our communities must unite to resist this fascist, white-supremacist agenda. We must continue educating one another about our rights – because we do have rights. Being undocumented is not a crime…settler colonialism is. People have the right to live, move, and travel freely, especially on land still being actively colonized by the settler state. Our opposition to repression and state terror must continue to be loud, strong, and unwavering.
Black people born in the United States stood with our immigrant siblings in 2016 and throughout Trump’s first administration, and we continue to stand together now. We remain committed to showing up and standing in solidarity. We support and are especially inspired by our youth in their bold acts of resistance, from school walkouts to direct action.
We know that dissent, civil disobedience, radical visioning, and organizing are our only options in the face of a fascist regime that seeks to divide us, separate families, and take away our loved ones through detentions, deportations, and other acts of state terror.
To our immigrant siblings… We are here. We are with you. And we will not stop until we are all free.
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Black Lives Matter Grassroots
The mission of Black Lives Matter Grassroots is to support, sustain, and uplift the necessary agitations, mobilizations, community organizing, and initiatives of Black Lives Matter chapters to fulfill our sacred duty to advance Black liberation. #BlackLivesMatter was birthed to end state-sanctioned violence against Black people. Black Lives Matter Grassroots is a collective of 39 chartered chapters globally working on the ground since 2013.
