Statement in Solidarity with Anti-ICE Protesters

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security condemns the ongoing ICE raids across the United States, the police violence against anti-ICE protesters, and the Trump Adminstration’s unlawful deployment of the California National Guard and US Marines in Los Angeles. We wholeheartedly agree with our colleagues at Genocide Watch that ICE’s mass deportations constitute a crime against humanity. Moreover, we see many red flags for genocide within the Administration’s anti-immigrant activities. We fear that escalating violence against protesters and elected officials questioning the Trump regime could result in further crimes against humanity, including murder, imprisonment, enforced disappearance of persons, torture, and persecution.

By pardoning the January 6th attackers, the Trump regime has institutionalized criminality as the only real rule in US politics. When transgression and subterfuge become the norm, laws become mere suggestions enforced only when they align with the ruling party’s political agenda. The enforcement of the law and the prosecution of violators becomes a cudgel used to silence opposition. Nowhere is this clearer than in President Trump’s stance on violence against the police and his willingness to use violence, arbitrary arrest, and detention against critics.

President Trump repeatedly stated that he federalized the California National Guard and deployed Marines in LA to protect local law enforcement. Yet, Trump praises the January 6th riots that left 140 police officers injured and one dead. When Congress and the Capitol Police were in danger from his supporters, President Trump waited hours to call in the National Guard. He also issued a blanket pardon for the January 6th insurrectionists, including those responsible for attacking, injuring, and killing police officers. President Trump doesn’t care about the police. Police officers are free game if your politics align with the Trump regime.

The normalization of political violence in the US extends beyond fascist threats to police officers. The Bridging Divides Initiative, a group that tracks political violence in the US, reports that threats against local officials, federal judges, and members of Congress have increased. President Trump alone has threatened to use government power to target his opponents more than 100 times. Four elected Democratic officials have been arrested by federal ICE agents while doing their job of providing oversight to the other branches and levels of government. There is no doubt that this behavior from the President has emboldened vigilantes as well. On 14 June a right-wing Christian dressed as a police officer shot two Democratic officials and their spouses in Minnesota, killing two people. In Salt Lake City, a “No Kings Day” protester was shot the same day. Historically, vigilantes and shadowy militias have carried out a great deal of the violence against unwanted, criminalized groups during genocides and other mass atrocities, including in the USA, where militias of ordinary citizens committed genocidal violence against Native Americans and enslaved people and policed white supremacy up through the 1960s.

The Lemkin Institute applauds all elected officials who have stood up and spoken out against ICE raids and the deployment of the US military against Americans. Under threat of arrest, California Governor Gavin Newsom has bravely challenged Trump in court and in the press. In a speech on 10 June, Newsom astutely observed that “California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived.” The Lemkin Institute agrees with Newsom’s assessment of the Trump regime’s plans. Newsom posted on social media that “His [President Trump’s] plan is clear: Incite violence and chaos in blue states, have an excuse to militarize our cities, demonize his opponents, keep breaking the law and consolidate power. It's illegal and we will not let it stand.” Not only is this scenario threatening to democracy, it is straight from the genocidaire’s handbook.

It is important that people understand how states pursuing genocidal aims against one group integrate genocidal tactics into everything they do. Policies and actions must be viewed as a whole. The Trump regime is deploying the US military and unidentified federal agents with unlimited power against millions of immigrants and refugees and those who stand with them. They are behaving with maximal terror and cruelty, separating mothers from children, breaking up families, and arresting children alone. Detained people are being held in unknown locations, in terrible conditions, without charges or access to family or legal aid. Once deported they are not being sent to other countries, but rather to prisons, where they are effectively disappeared. All without a trial.

The Trump regime’s authoritarian behavior is not only a crime against humanity, it also has the potential to reach genocidal levels of violence following Pattern 5 of the Ten Patterns of Genocide. The fifth pattern of genocide involves the destruction of a group through gross human rights violations and mass cultural destruction. Members of specific communities are humiliated and harmed based on their identities while important institutions and symbols of the group are desecrated and destroyed. ICE certainly humiliates and harms people suspected of being “illegal”, a determination that rests heavily on racial profiling. Important institutions, like celebrations, cultural heritage festivals, and school graduation ceremonies, have been destroyed by ICE raids and are increasingly being cancelled due to fear. This type of violence against immigrants is a training ground for other patterns of genocide against other communities, and popular acceptance of it will inure Americans to ever-escalating atrocities.

The Lemkin Institute stands in solidarity with the anti-ICE protesters in LA and across the US. They are doing genocide prevention work. It is worth reiterating the important point that nonviolent protests only need to engage 3.5% of the population consistently to succeed. Those courageously protesting ICE raids, even in the face of state violence, are doing their part. Now, more and more Americans must show up. 3.5% of the US population is a bit less than 12 million people. Analysts estimate that 4-6 million people showed up at protests on Saturday, June 14th. But one day of protest is not enough. We need sustained and effective protests from almost double the number of people who showed up on “No Kings Day” in order to reverse course.

Structural state violence has long been the norm in the US towards communities of color and poor communities. But we are at a point of rupture where the violence has become so widespread, theatrical, and public that more Americans are waking up to the fact that this reality still exists and is becoming so intense that it threatens to undermine the American constitutional order itself. The people of the United States have the opportunity not only to reject the fascism of the Trump regime, but also to reject the conditions that have led us to this point. ICE and CBP have been emboldened through successive administrations and by both parties. The Lemkin Institute calls on elected officials across the political spectrum and everyday people to say “No” to brutal ICE raids and to say “No” to the use of the US military to silence dissent.

For more information regarding the US’s evolving immigration policy, please visit our page dedicated to immigration updates.