‘Stop the deportations’ rally at Kesey Square Feb. 8

Presenter: A rally to stand with our immigrant neighbors Saturday Feb. 8, Kesey Square, at 11 a m. From the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Kaleigh Bronson-Cook:

[00:00:11] Kaleigh Bronson-Cook: Hope you can join us Saturday at 11 a.m. We the PSL and many other organizations and individuals here in the Eugene community are going to be coming together to stand with our immigrant neighbors to stand up not just for their rights, but for really for a system and for a world in which immigrants are seen as valuable, important parts of our society and our community.

[00:00:31] Immigrants are workers. Immigrants make our country and our community rich and vibrant, and are integral parts of not just our economy, but of our community and of our country.

[00:00:45] And this event, it’s very grassroots, just bringing people together who want to stand in solidarity with our immigrant neighbors at this time in which we are seeing unprecedented attacks across the country on immigrant and migrant and undocumented communities, with the Trump administration’s executive orders and the barrage of attacks that we’re seeing, not just here in Oregon, but across the country.

[00:01:11] Presenter: After the Saturday event, there will be an emergency organizing meeting on Wednesday. From the PSL, Rob Fisette:

[00:01:20] Rob Fisette: So we’re definitely seeing like around the country, people are being mobilized by the actions around immigration. And, you know, PSL has been an instrumental part of that in a lot of places like LA, Phoenix, Dallas, Denver and all around, mobilizing a lot of people, like actions, demonstrations in the street, but also, infrastructure for community defense, which is the other part of that mobilization work.

[00:01:46] We talked a lot about, you know, organizing some event is for its own sake, but it’s also for the practice of organizing people together to do a thing, the practice of doing street outreach to get people to take an action. I think we will see the benefits of that play out as we try to organize around migrant defense in our community.

[00:02:09] And that’s one of the things that we’re hoping to bring to our event on Wednesday. We’re having an emergency organizing meeting at the Growers Market, where we’re trying to pull in a lot of the volunteers, the endorsers, co-sponsors, as well as other people who are feeling activated in this moment around immigration and migrant rights and migrant defense to organize some actions that we can take in our community to respond to the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) action that we’re seeing be taken, even here.

[00:02:37] It’s being taken more quietly in a lot of ways than in the first Trump administration. Nationally, we’ve seen some ICE raids on a company where a lot of migrants work or an apartment building where a lot of them live, but mostly they seem to be wanting to operate more quietly here.

[00:02:55] And part of that is to minimize the blowback. We’ve seen people be called in for a last-minute check-in appointment at ICE and then be taken to Tacoma, right, very quietly, done in a way that is not intended to draw attention because they know what that attention would look like.

[00:03:14] And so part of our job as organizers is to elevate the consciousness around what tactics are actually being taken to make sure that people are aware and that they are responding in the way that they would if the action was being taken more loudly, because we know that the impact of the action is the same.

[00:03:32] Presenter: Kaleigh Bronson-Cook:

[00:03:34] Kaleigh Bronson-Cook: You know, I think, a lot of people, there’s a perceived sense of safety and stability in Eugene and in Oregon because Oregon is a sanctuary state and Eugene is a sanctuary city. And so people hear that and they think, ‘Whew, okay, we’re good.’ And that’s not true.

[00:03:47] There is an ICE office here in Eugene, as Rob mentioned. People are being detained after their ICE appointments. They’re being deported. And just because Eugene is a sanctuary city, which all that means is that local law enforcement, it is illegal for local law enforcement to help enforce ICE warrants or to collaborate in immigration efforts.

[00:04:09] That does not mean that people are not being deported, it does not mean that families are not being separated, and it does not mean that we as a community can just afford to stand by and let that happen.

[00:04:20] So it’s really important that we come together, not just on Saturday, but also on Wednesday, on the 12th at 6 p.m. at Grower’s Market for our emergency organizing meeting to really mobilize, to ensure that our community knows their rights, that they have the information they need to defend themselves and their communities, and also that all of us who are not immigrants and who have ‘legal status,’ that we are able to stand in solidarity with the immigrants in our community right now at this really critical time.

[00:04:50] Presenter: It’s important to know your rights. Rob Fisette:

[00:04:53] Rob Fisette: We talk about things like community defense, rapid response, and I think one of the images that comes to people’s minds when we talk about that is, you know, there’s a raid going on right now or an arrest going on right now, and we’re all showing up to do a de-arrest, right, that’s what rapid response is. And that’s almost never what it actually is in real life.

[00:05:11] In real life, it’s first of all, the proactive outreach to make sure that people actually know what their rights are, when they’re about to be violated. So one of our party has been passing around something similar like the ‘Don’t open for ICE’ flyer / card that is communicating to people what their rights are.

[00:05:29] And that is extremely important as Tom Homan, the ‘border czar,’ himself recently admitted in a CNN interview where he was kind of whining about how hard it has been to detain immigrants in Chicago because they know their rights so much. Right? You’ve probably seen this quote. It was like, ‘They know their rights so well because these community organizers are teaching them how to avoid arrest.’ It’s like, yeah, that’s what knowing your rights is.

[00:05:55] And that is a huge part of community defense and has been a part of what a lot of people have been doing in the last few weeks.

[00:06:02] That said, people’s rights are violated all the time, right? So knowing your rights is a first step. But then we also need to be aware that those rights can be violated, not just by the Trump administration, right? We saw students’ rights being violated during the encampments for Gaza all the time. The billionaire agenda just does not care about your rights in the long run.

[00:06:24] Presenter: He encouraged neighbors to document violations. From the PSL, Rob Fisette:

[00:06:29] Rob Fisette: We need to document all the times that those rights are being violated. Identifying those places where the administration is overstepping its bounds over and over again is a way that people come to understand what exactly the system is all about. And that is to say that we know our rights because it helps, because it actually does help defend our communities, but then also because we know when they’re violated, that brings light to what the system actually does and what it’s really doing.

[00:06:59] Presenter: Kaleigh Bronson-Cook:

[00:07:01] Kaleigh Bronson-Cook: It’s important that in this moment that we as working people remember that we have so much more in common with, we do more with immigrants than we do with billionaires, than we do with politicians, than we do with Trump, Elon Musk, any of these people.

[00:07:19] Their goal is to divide us. Their goal is to make us think that immigrants are our enemy, and it is important that we make it loud, that we make it crystal clear that immigrants are not our enemy. Billionaires are our enemy—the people who would rather see mass deportations, people living on the street, people unable to make ends meet.

[00:07:40] They would rather deport thousands of people, than give one inch when it comes to making life livable for working people in this country. And that is the spirit of what I will be talking about at the event tomorrow, is really trying to emphasize to people that immigrants are not our enemy, that the people who put profit above the needs of people and the planet, who rake in record profits while we are struggling to pay our bills, they are our enemy.

[00:08:10] Immigrants are not our enemy. And an injury to one is an injury to all and, and it is our imperative that we unite as a working-class people and we see our struggle as connected, right? Whether it is the struggle for immigrant justice, whether it is the struggle for women’s and LGBTQ justice, whether it’s the housing, the movement for just and affordable housing.

[00:08:32] These movements are the same movement, because ultimately our interests are aligned against the interests of the system that would see our world and our people destroyed over a different way of doing things, over a system that would put the needs of people and the planet over profit.

[00:08:48] Presenter: Rob said while ICE is acting quietly, the community must be loud.

[00:08:53] Rob Fisette: The way ICE is going about its business in our community right now is trying to be quiet, and therefore being loud about it is an essential part of fighting back, and so Wednesday night, we’ll be putting together or sharing out a plan for public action.

[00:09:06] We’re going to bring a lot of materials for people to do outreach in their communities in those spaces of organic connection that they have with their community, whether that’s their school, their neighborhood association, just their neighborhood, their work, their PTA, right?

[00:09:20] We want to be able to provide people with the materials that they need to share out. It’s ‘Know Your Rights,’ but it’s also a lot of the information that Kaleigh was talking about—how all of our struggles are connected and how we have so much more in common with each other.

[00:09:35] So sharing out those materials, trying to get people signed up to do outreach where we can bring a lot of those materials out on the streets to meet people there where they are. These are the initiatives that we’re trying to kick off with our Wednesday night organizing meeting.

[00:09:53] Presenter: The PSL encourages you to drop off winter items for Eugene First Christian Church any Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Kaleigh Bronson-Cook:

[00:10:04] Kaleigh Bronson-Cook: We’re helping collect donations of winter items for the Eugene First Christian Church. Just hats, warm winter clothing, tents, sleeping bags, personal hygiene products.

[00:10:15] Presenter: A rally at Kesey Square Saturday Feb. 8 at 11 a.m., and an emergency organizing meeting at the Growers Market Wednesday, Feb. 12 at 6 p m. For more, see the Instagram page for PSL Eugene.