I haven’t said much here because I figure anyone who reads my books could guess how I feel about everything going on… but sometimes I’m surprised. So:
Liam Conejo Ramos is five years old. ICE took his dad and tried to use Liam as bait to arrest people. Now he’s in a “detention center” over a thousand miles from home with a fever. Again: he’s five. He’s not alone in being sick, either. Detainees are routinely abused and neglected in those “detention centers.” Many have died.
They gave Renee Good contrary instructions and then shot her when she did literally anything. She never threatened anyone. She was murdered by guys who put on a badge under the claim that they’re “protecting” people.
Four guys beat and pinned Alex Pretti to the ground. They took his gun away BEFORE they shot him. He had the gun legally, never took it out, never threatened anyone. They murdered him. The administration rushed out to call him dangerous, a terrorist, and a would-be assassin, and have only slightly backpedaled on the rhetoric because of public sentiment.
Minnesota is under occupation by untrained brutes with guns who don’t give a damn about the law. The same brutes are all over many other cities, too.
All of this is in service to a bigoted, paranoid, fascist agenda. Trump and his goons are stomping all over basic humanity and YOUR Constitutional rights.
Your life is not improved in any way when someone is deported. Their lives, however, are destroyed. At best, the small number of genuinely dangerous criminals—and it is a small portion—just get sent somewhere else to become someone else’s problem. Far more of the people being abducted and banished here are no threat to anyone. They’re our neighbors. They’re our friends. We need serious and fair immigration reform, not ethnic cleansing and rampant cruelty.
ICE must be abolished. The whole org has to go. Every remaining dollar of that mountain of money they got from Congress should go to a settlement fund to GENEROUSLY compensate everyone whose rights ICE and CBP violated, everyone they’ve brutalized, and the surviving loved ones of the people they’ve murdered, whether they’re citizens or not. And yes, a whole lot of ICE agents and their bosses deserve criminal charges.
There’s so much more, too. If bombing a country, shooting people, and abducting its president—even if he’s terrible—isn’t an act of war, then literally nothing is. The US is mugging Venezuela on an ongoing basis. This government is bullying and threatening allies. They’re robbing this country and others blind. The list of this regime’s crimes goes on and on. Every day has brought a fresh, genuine justification for impeachment.
And while I’m here, if you’re one of my readers: yes, Pete Hegseth is basically the poster child for nearly every toxic, awful thing the Poor Man’s Fight series calls out about the military. Obviously. Hell, he’s worse than that.
I don’t post much about this stuff lately because I doubt my opinion pushes anyone in any direction. I’m not interested in coming back here to argue with people in the comments, either. Anyone who supports any of this is just telling on themselves. The vast majority of my readers already feel the same way I do, or close; that’s why they connect with my books. Some are doubtlessly braver and more actively engaged in this struggle than I am, and I’m deeply grateful to them.
If you’re lost, if you feel helpless, please understand the first and BEST thing you can do is take care of yourself and the people around you. That’s the starting point. It’s not “doing nothing.” That’s community, and everything else grows from there. Start with that, and then look for the next way to help. Everything counts. KINDNESS counts.
Since the election, I have tried to focus on my work, because I know people need breaks and space to breathe. My books are a way to provide a little of that. It feels cheap to sit here and write when that’s the thing I was already doing, but I know it’s the best way I can help. I’m gonna keep doing that. Still, I felt like maybe I should go ahead and make this explicit.
None of this is okay. Fuck ICE.