Earlier this month, border czar Tom Homan announced the withdrawal of all but a small number of immigration officers from Minnesota, presumably sparked by the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, hundreds of aggressive, often violent acts on peaceful protesters and weeks of apprehension and fear spread across the state.
That’s supposedly happening. But considering the source, why would we believe it? Why would anyone take this administration’s word as truth when all it does is lie, deny and tell you what you should believe—even if your eyes tell you otherwise?
The residents of Minneapolis say they haven’t noticed a difference; they say federal agents are still out and immigrants are still in hiding, afraid of being grabbed off the streets by masked, armed, unidentified men in bulletproof vests with the word Police splashed across it.
The result is the same: reports of federal agents hovering near schools and in neighborhoods, lying in wait for the next person who looks enough like someone from a different country to grab, be it off the street, out of their vehicles or even out of their homes.
We’ve seen those same scenes play out repeatedly: In Minneapolis. In Chicago. In Memphis. In Portland. In Los Angeles.
We’ve seen them in New York. Alex Gonzalez, a UUP member at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, was arrested by ICE last October with his husband, CSEA member Yan Vazquez, while waiting to attend his immigration hearing in Syracuse.
Gonzalez and Vazquez were ordered deported to Ecuador last month. The men, who are Cuban, appealed their deportations and were released on bond last week from an ICE detention center in Batavia, near Buffalo. Neither man has a criminal record.
Earlier this month, a University at Buffalo science researcher from Azerbaijan, was arrested by Border Patrol agents in January after making a wrong turn onto the Peace Bridge—even though he had a Department of Homeland Security permit to legally work in the U.S. A federal judge released him from a Michigan detention center earlier this month.
I’ve seen enough.
In less than two months’ time, Americans have witnessed the horrific shootings of Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti and the shocking but not surprising response of an indignant administration that immediately vilified them as domestic terrorists.
We saw the arrest and detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who was wearing a fuzzy blue winter hat with bunny ears and a Spiderman backpack when masked ICE agents grabbed him in January while walking home from school. ICE agents used the child as bait to arrest his family.
We’ve seen the continued brutality of federal ICE agents, who were recently called out by Minnesota’s chief federal judge for violating nearly 100 court orders—and more judicial directives in one month than some federal agencies have done in their existence.
ICE agents are stopping people on the streets and asking them for papers to prove they are American citizens. This is not the land of the free—not with a regime that labels critics as criminals.
This must end.
That’s why my union joined with CUNY’s 30,000-strong professional staff congress and 9,000 unionized faculty at Rutgers University to issue a call for the end of the militarization of American cities and violence against immigrants and the peaceful demonstrators protesting those actions.
To achieve this, Congress must immediately cease funding for ICE and suspend—at least temporarily—ICE operations across the country. UUP supports the apprehension of immigrants who are the “worst of the worst,” as the president repeatedly promised during the 2024 campaign.
But it’s become painfully obvious that’s not happening. And with a complacent Congress, the chances of accomplishing these changes are slim.
We must create the change we seek. We must organize.
To that end, we call for an escalating, coordinated and continuing series of national, nonviolent protests, targeted economic shutdowns and noncooperation. While UUP strongly supports the No Kings protests—we’ll be out in big numbers at the next one on March 28—we’re not talking about an action every few months or even once a month.
Without a coordinated series of national protests and events, the Trump administration will surely ramp up its attacks on democracy and our guaranteed freedoms under the U.S. Constitution. The president’s inhumane immigration clampdown will become more aggressive and more violent. More people will die.
But we fight for democracy, for freedom and for the principles our forefathers set out 250 years ago in the Declaration of Independence. We will employ those rights against the Trump regime’s terror campaign.
This is our fight. This is labor’s fight. Labor unions have a long history of standing up to autocratic regimes like the one in the White House. It is time for unions—all unions—to step up, speak out and organize.
We believe in the pursuit of truth, inquiry and creativity in all its forms. We believe in science and the knowledge gained through scientific discovery. We believe in democracy. We believe in freedom.
We know there are millions more like us. Together, we can make our voices heard and create the change we seek.
Dr. Fred Kowal is President of the 35,000 member United University Professions, which represents faculty on 29 New York State Campuses. UUP is an affiliate of NYSUT, The American Federation of Teachers, The National Education Association and the AFL-CIO.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
