Join Lexington Alarm! at MLK Activator’s Fair on Monday, Jan 19th

The parallels are striking and undeniable. An unpopular, external military force shoots and kills protesters haranguing the officers, demanding they leave. Snowballs are thrown.

Graham Platner won Maine’s Democratic primary in a landslide, then quit after allegations he could not survive. His fall split the movement he built. We believe women, and violence against women is disqualifying, period. But his takedown was also coordinated Republican opposition research, and that is nothing to cheer. What does his exit mean for our movement?

In September the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission, consisting of representatives from the town surrounding Hanscom, formally asked Massport for information about incoming ICE flights at the airfield and support activities, such as fueling and servicing of ICE charters. Christopher Willenborg, director of Hanscom Field, replied that Massport had no knowledge of incoming ICE flights. This was a lie.

A coalition of immigrant rights organizations, legislators, union leaders, and concerned citizens gathered outside Boston’s Statehouse on Oct. 22 to launch Protecting Massachusetts Communities (PMC) — a campaign to legally defend against the freedom of ICE agents to target, hunt down, arrest and deport the thousands of immigrants and refugees living and working in our communities.

“Operation Patriot,” the federal government’s escalation of immigrant deportations from Massachusetts last spring netted 1,500 arrests in May alone, mostly in the Boston “sanctuary city” area.”Operation Patriot 2.0”, which began in September, has yielded another 1,500 arrests is ongoing.

ICE’s growing use of violence in abducting immigrants spreads a constant fear in their homes and work places, not only in metropolitan Boston and its suburbs but also in Worcester, Lowell, Fall River, Framingham and Nantucket. Currently, the operations are reported to be moving into the Merrimack Valley region. Immigrants are afraid to take public transportation, go to work or send their children to school for fear of being trapped in a massive ICE dragnet based on racial profiling, now encouraged by the Supreme Court.

Contrary to federal claims of targeting only hardcore criminals, up to 80% of those indiscriminately scooped up, detained, stripped of their rights and deported are found to have no criminal record.

Alex Pretti, a 37 year old nurse known by neighbors as an amiable man in his neighborhood was murdered by federal ICE agents today in Minneapolis.

Alex was not the target of any investigation. He was using his iphone to film the violent threats of ICE agents in the street, and he was talking to another woman filming the scene. ICE agents approached him and the woman, wrestled him to the ground, and after he had been subdued one agent took out a gun and fired up to ten shots killing him. His last words, to the woman who was pinned to the ground near him as they were pepper sprayed, were “all you alright?”

We are at war. No sense mincing words. Until we tear the present DHS agency down to the ground and start with a new structure, no one in America is safe.

By focusing so much on Trump, we have allowed all those who make his atrocities possible to escape responsibility. Here are some tips for focused, stronger messaging to hold Republican enablers accountable as we approach the midterms.