GAR Statement on Escalated ICE Raids and Travel Ban

Over the past week, ICE, DHS, the FBI, and local police departments escalated their coordinated attacks to abduct and detain immigrants across Los Angeles, San Diego, New York, Texas, and Massachusetts. In the same week, Trump revived his travel ban on twelve countries targeting Black, Muslim, and Asian communities from Afghanistan, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, the Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. The same government that has funded genocide in Palestine and armed dictatorships worldwide is now deploying those same tactics in our neighborhoods.

This is not just an attack on immigrants; it’s a test for nationwide repression. Trump has flooded Los Angeles with 2,000 National Guard troops and 500 Marines, testing how far his authoritarian violence can go. 

We’ve seen these tactics before in the US and abroad: when ICE was first formed as a part of the “War on Terror” to surveil and harass AMEMSA communities, in the Philippines under Martial Law, in Korea under corrupt political leaders. As working-class Asian people in the US, we are too familiar with how authoritarian regimes rose to power through the same playbook in our own homelands: Mass arrests, militarized policing, propaganda that dehumanizes dissent, and the deliberate erasure of state violence to as distract us as they take away our constitutional rights, defund our social safety nets, and increase the wealth of billionaires.

Authoritarianism wins by dividing us. It thrives when we prioritize respectability over resistance, believing compliance will spare us. But what we accept for others, we accept for ourselves. There is nothing “respectable” about obedience to state violence. Our dignity lies only in how fiercely we defend and protect each other.

Right now, right-wing forces in our own Asian communities are pushing respectability politics by collaborating with repression by condemning protests, siding with police, or dismissing raids as “only targeting criminals.” When we fail to confront these right-wing forces, we leave our people both vulnerable and complicit. Authoritarianism doesn’t stop at borders or identities; it expands wherever resistance is weakest.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets to defend our communities against this authoritarian abuse of federal power. In these streets is where we clearly see our power: The people, united, will never be defeated! 

SUPPORT ASIAN FOLKS ON THE FRONTLINES

Southeast Asian refugees are being detained and deported at alarming rates. 

• Southeast Asian Freedom Network’s statement: Refuse & Resist Trump Regime’s Test of Power with Our Community 

• Vo Danh Collective’s statement: US Deports 158 Vietnamese and Laotian Refugees 

• Take Action: 

• Support the APSC4

• AARW: Free Dong

• AARW: ICE Detention Surge in MA

• Donate to the Ba Lô Project to support deported Vietnamese refugees 

• For next steps on how we protect our Southeast Asian and AMEMSA immigrant communities, follow GAR member organizations AAAN, AROC, PrYSM, SEAC, Woori Juntos, DRUM, AARW, and A4BT

• To learn more about what is happening on the ground in LA, follow GAR member organizations PWC, CCED, and APEN. 

Revised travel ban will have devastating impacts on AMEMSA communities. 

• Muslims for Just Futures: FAQs on the Travel Ban 

• Muslims for Just Futures: Solidarity Statement on Travel Ban

• For next steps on how we fight the travel ban, follow GAR member organizations DRUM, AROC, AAAN, AFBT, and MJF.