Rapid Response Community Defense Mobilization

 

What This Guide Covers

This guide is meant to help you create mobilization tools for a rapid response community defense effort to help immigrants and workers collectively protect themselves. Much of this text comes out of the existing non-profit industrial complex and should be understood as such. It is also modeled on the Sanctuary in the Streets effort that emerged from the Pioneer Valley Workers Center during the first Trump administration, complete with its General Assembly for democratic community decision making. There is still much that can be learned from these tactics, useful in building the movement for a socialist revolution against fascism.

Every time the Trump Administration clamps down on the rights of workers, immigrants, women and LGBTQIA+ people, it is an opportunity for us to point out that fascism is coming for us all. Countless people made a bet – either that Trump’s policies will make them better off, or that they won’t be bad enough to justify their involvement in stopping fascism.

They’re all wrong and delusional, trying to maintain contradictory thoughts that are increasingly coming up against the horrific facts of our shared reality. Many of these people probably knows someone through their workplace, neighborhood, place of worship, a favorite shop or restaurant who is going to feel the threat and violence of fascism. Though the threat is obviously greatest for those facing deportation or whose official existence is being erased in favor of a world with only two genders, everyone’s safety, security, and well being are being fundamentally destroyed right before our eyes.

We’ve got a massive opportunity to recruit people from all across the country. But in order to do that, we have to be organized and be able to bring masses of people into community defense efforts, including at a moment’s notice. We need tools likes these in order to help us become a sizable force.

 

Components of the Hotline & Mobilization Tool

 

OVERVIEW

Community Defense Hotline

What It Does

• Receive calls & messages from immigrants & workers
• ICE Watch to verify reports of ICE agents, police checkpoints, etc.
• Verify the need for a community defense action in a neighborhood or workplace

What It Requires

• A team who can stay grounded even when others are very anxious
• An outreach effort that can win the trust of immigrants and workers
• A team of hotline operators who can receive reports in real time
• A team who can either deploy in scheduled shifts or rapidly in response to a report
• Access to a call-forwarding service like Google Voice

Mass Texting Tool – For Immigrants, Workers, etc.

What It Does

• Rapid response communication tool for internal and external communication
• Communicate verified information and calls to action (in multiple languages)

What It Requires

• An organizing effort to sign-up message recipients
• A dispatch team that carefully vets information before sending
• A hotline management and dispatch team that can coordinate and support organizers “on call”

Resource Referrals

What It Does

Refers callers to trusted local organizations who can support them or direct them to those who can

What It Requires

• Ability to research and identify organizations within the local non-profit industrial complex who can provide services or who have existing relations with those who can
• Ability to maintain relationships with organizations within the non-profit industrial complex, if only so that they will help callers

 

DETAILS

COMMUNITY DEFENSE HOTLINE

The hotline is both a rapid response community defense tool and a way to build worker power.

These are some of the situations that have come up for immigrant defense organizations. Given moves by the Trump 2.0 administration, they’re likely only going to get more aggressive.

Community

• ICE appointments: People who had their deportation orders (“final order of removal”) suspended under Obama were being ordered to leave the country at annual or every-six-month “check-ins” at ICE offices.
• ICE “community” and “collateral” arrests: ICE agents began making more early-morning arrests, with plainclothes agents in unmarked vehicles posing as undercover police officers, and detaining not only the people they were looking for but also anyone they suspected of being undocumented (“collateral arrests”).
• More violent ICE arrests: In 2017 and 2018 it was uncommon for ICE agents to force people they had pulled over to leave their vehicle, but by the end of 2019 ICE agents often broke windows and dragged occupants out of their cars
• Re-entry prosecutions: People detained by ICE in 2019 and 2020 began more often being charged with a federal felony, “illegal re-entry of the United States”, charges that require much more support to defend against than civil immigration charges
• Dangerous jail conditions: Reports from panicked loved ones of people detained throughout the Southeast reporting horrific conditions
• Border crossing support: Calls from family members looking for loved ones they had lost contact with or who had been detained crossing the US-Mexico border, and had to establish connections with Texas and Arizona migrant support organizations.
• Jail, probation and courthouse arrests: ICE agents began detaining more people at their final probation appointment, some sheriffs began unconstitutionally holding people charged with a crime in jail after receiving an ICE detainer request, which meant organizing to fight back
• School and workplace harassment: Callers reported their children or coworkers being taunted by others (“youʼll have to go back to Mexico”) and school administrators and supervisors unwilling to acknowledge the harassment or intervene

Workplace

• Employer intimidation: Reports from workers documenting wage theft in construction, restaurants and other subcontracted industries, usually accompanied by threats
• Homeland Security Investigations workplace targeting: Callers reporting “no-match” letters received by employers
• Corporate ICE collaboration: Employees of a local hotel chain alerted that ICE agents from out of town were staying overnight near a local jail ICE often used as a detention transit point, and other whistleblowers alerted us to companies’ role in stepped-up operations

What the Hotline is Designed to Do

• Rumor control: Verify reports that are creating fear in the real world or through social media channels
• Build community power: Our communities are safer when we’re able to defend against federal agents and police when they are operating nearby. Being able to do this often begins with a call to the hotline.
• Build worker power: defending against workplace raids, wage theft, etc. often begins with a call to the hotline.
• Resource referral: Being able to connect folks to the organizations with resources and relationships they need.

Hotline Goals

A good rule of thumb to determine if we can organizationally provide support is to think about how the issue this person is reporting can turn into an organizing opportunity: for example can we get a larger number of workers to fight this wage theft case or can we get a larger community to fight for a win that will have an impact on the community.

For workplace defense and building worker power more generally, the hotline is meant to:

• Create a way for workers to know and feel confident that there is a growing movement of those who will provide concrete support and militantly have their backs
• Help provide an initial point of contact in order to hopefully be able to engage with and organize more people at that workplace
• Help build relationships to recruit into the movement
• Creating opportunities to go on the offensive against those who attack

For community deportation defense, the hotline is meant to:

• Create a way for people targeted by the State to know and feel confident that there is a growing movement of those who will provide concrete support and militantly have their backs
• Help provide an initial point of contact in order to hopefully be able to engage with and organize more people in that community
• Creating opportunities to make visible the otherwise invisible attacks on our communities, and their heartwrenching costs,
• Creating opportunities to go on the offensive against those who attack,

We provide concrete support when we:

• Use our network to verify rumors and reports
• Provide or refer out to a source of financial or other material aid
• Help people understand how to navigate the system (ie the online jail lookups, visitation, calling incarcerated loved ones…)
• People are experiencing wage theft and need support to get their money back

How it Works

A hotline typically operates for certain hours every day of the week and has a dedicated team who rotate shifts.

Typically, it prioritizes answering calls in the mornings from 6 am to 9 am and from 5 pm to 9 pm because these are times that historically have been when ICE is active and running raids and also when checkpoints are likely to be up. Calls between 9 am and 5 pm tend to not have to be answered right away (if you are otherwise occupied) but need to be followed up with a message or a call at a later time.

Hotline are operated using one of the platforms recommended. Each person operating the line is added to this platform as an operator.

When you are on duty the calls that come into the hotline are forwarded to your phone. If you miss the call, you will receive a text message and email letting you know you did. You will also receive an email when a text message comes in.

As you are answering calls, you will find that people call with a variety problems or seeking information. It is impossible for any one person to know all of this so use the Hotline Dispatch Thread to crowdsource information for each other.

The schedule for answering is set weekly and operators receive a notification on their Google Calendar.

What it Takes

Before deciding to establish a hotline or deciding on goals for your specific hotline, we recommend answering these questions:

• Goals: What problems are we trying to solve or what power are we trying to build by using a hotline as a tool?
• Capacity: Do we have the ability to build trust with undocumented immigrants and workers who might use the hotline to report suspected ICE operations, workplace abuse, or ask for referrals for trustworthy organizations?
• Capacity: Do we have the ability to field a team that can verify rumors and “live” reports?
• Capacity: Do we have the attention span to possibly speak with hundreds of individual people face-to-face over many months to build awareness of the hotline?

 

ICE, COP, & FASH WATCH

ICE, COP, & FASH WATCH provides a way for communities and workers to defend and support each other in the face of increased detention operations, police violence, and fascist attacks.

What ICE, COP, & FASH WATCH is Designed to Do

• Rumor control: Verify reports that are creating fear in the real world or through social media channels
• Empower communities to be able to alert the presence of ICE, cops, and fascists, getting a rapid response of defenders
• Shine a light on ICE, law enforcement operations, and fascist attacks: Our communities are safer when people know about how and when federal agents, police, and fascists are operating nearby
• Keep families together: People who know both how to defend their rights and how immigration agents are operating nearby are less likely to be separated from their families

What It Is

• Training workers and community residents become the eyes and ears of the movement
• Who communicate with hotline operators/dispatchers about what they see
• Who, if they encounter suspected ICE, law enforcement, or fascist are able to confidently ask questions, if safe and necessary
• And who, if they encounter ICE agents conducting operations, take directions from operators/dispatchers to provide greater awareness for immigrants who might be nearby

Establishing an ICE, COP, & FASH WATCH program

• Recruit people to be part of a coordination team
• Decide on goals, roles, structure and process: Hotline schedule, hotline coordinators, shift system, recruitment and management, etc.
• Sign-up people interested in becoming trained
• Host verifier trainings (including role plays on interactions with ICE agents)
• Host “practice runs” – simulations of ICE reports to test the ICE Watch system
• Create an outreach program that educates and builds trust with immigrants face-to-face while raising awareness of the existence of a defense hotline

Documents – see downloads

Checkpoint and ICE Activity Verification Procedures

ICE Watch volunteer training (outline, slides)

TEXTING MOBILIZATION TOOL

This entails creating two texting platforms. A broadcast platform to send one-way messages to large audiences, and a two-way community platform that allows your hotline dispatchers to communicate with the broader base of support.

What It Does

• Hotline reporting
• ICE, COP, & FASH WATCH management
• Call to action for neighborhood and workplace-based community defense
• Other calls to action

How It Works

• When hotline dispatchers receive a report, they make sure it’s valid, and can either communicate within the platform internally, including instructing the person who reported it about specific next steps, or broadcast a call for mass mobilization.
• When mass mobilization community defense isn’t necessary, people who live in the same neighborhood can message each other to determine next steps, if any.
• When ICE, law enforcement, or fascist presence is confirmed and mass mobilization is necessary, dispatchers send an internal message to organizers for assistance and a broadcast message with verified info to a list of recipients.

Texting Platform Considerations

• Recipient list can scale much faster if they can add themselves via app or shortcode
• Sending just one SMS to 2,000 contacts can cost upwards of $30 depending on platform
• Should be able to send & receive SMS
• Less overwhelming if it only allows for one-way communication, ie, people wonʼt see each otherʼs responses to hotline dispatchers
• Should be an app or service familiar to most people in the neighborhood
• Important to have the ability to broadcast images and links

Broadcast Texting Services

Apps That Require Download

Telegram

• Broadcast for free to up to 200,000 people – Can create separate two-way discussion groups linked to the broadcast channel
• Requires recipients to download Telegram
• Some recipients will not be able to download new apps (“dumb phones”)

WhatsApp

• Broadcast for free to up to 2,000 people – Can create separate two-way discussion groups linked to the broadcast channel
• You might exceed the 2,000 subscriber limit

Signal

• Broadcast for free to up to 1,000
• Many potential volunteers already have this app
• You might exceed the 1,000 subscriber limit
• No ability to link to other chat groups within the app

No Download Required

Twilio

• Cheaper than other paid SMS services (as an SMS “wholesaler” often hosts the back-end for other services)
• $$ (charge per message)
• Not the most user-friendly interface
• Normal corporate customer support experience

Strive

• Founded by activists who have some experience providing the back-end for hotlines
• $$ (charge by message volume)
• all SMS broadcast systems can be flagged as spam by phone providers

Others

• $$ (charge by message volume)
• all SMS broadcast systems can be flagged as spam by phone providers

Community Texting Services (for messaging within a group)

Apps That Require Download

Telegram

• Broadcast for free to up to 200,000 volunteers
• Can create separate two-way discussion groups linked to the broadcast channel
• Requires recipients to download Telegram
• Some recipients will not be able to download new apps (“dumb phones”)

WhatsApp

• Broadcast for free to up to 2,000 people – Can create separate two-way discussion groups linked to the broadcast channel
• You might exceed the 2,000 subscriber limit

Signal

• Many potential volunteers already have this app

 

RESOURCE REFERRALS

Try to find at least one organization who has or has relationships with those who have had direct experiences as clients of attorneys or agencies. Oftentimes what one service provider will say they’ve heard about another is different from the actual experiences of clients, particularly of non-English-speakers.

Resource Referral Goals

• Provide reliable connections to people experiencing hardship or crisis
• Find one or two local organizations who can be the go-to source of information and connections

Potential Resource Providers include:

• Immigrant assistance nonprofits
• Domestic violence agencies and criminal justice survivor support groups
• Housing counseling and support agencies (and tenant unions)
• Defense networks like Detention Watch Network, NPNA
• American Immigration Lawyers Association members are often more trustworthy than nonaccredited immigration lawyers

Resource

• Immigration attorneys
• Criminal attorneys
• Border immigration support
• Legal Aid and other nonprofit legal service providers
• Financial assistance provider
• Domestic violence or housing support agency

What Callers Often Want

• Support with the detention (in a local jail or immigration detention) of an immediate family member
• Support for a family member sentenced to probation or prison
• CIS/ICE appointment: Support for a coming appointment with a federal agency
• Assessment for legal status: whether family members qualify for a visa or other form of protection
• Processing paperwork: Support preparing and submitting immigration forms
• Support for an incarcerated family member or someone charged with a crime
• Support for a family member sentenced to probation or prison
• Support locating a loved one crossing the border
• Support representing a loved one detained while crossing the border
• Free legal support for a civil or criminal matter
• Support paying for rent, legal expenses, etc.
• Support for a loved one experiencing domestic violence or difficulty with a landlord or with loss of rental housing

Questions for Local Organizations to Ask Potential Resource Providers

• What kinds of cases they currently accept: detained or nondetained, criminal or noncriminal
• If they have represented someone detained pretrial in a local jail – What immigration courts they take cases within
• How much they charge for first visits and for representation in detention cases, visa cases, etc.
• What forms of payment and payment plans they accept – If there are criminal attorneys they often work with
• When they have worked on dual immigration and criminal defense cases, if at all
• If they have represented an immigrant who lacks legal status who is detained pretrial in a local jail
• What they charge for different kinds of cases, what forms of payment and payment plans they accept
• In what border regions do you provide support? – What support do you provide?
• How should families get in contact with you?
• What kinds of immigration status are excluded from receiving services, if any
• What kinds of cases they represent or on which they provide consultation
• What fees are charged, if any
• What kinds of immigration status are excluded from receiving services, if any
• What kinds of immigration status are excluded from receiving services, if any
• When have you worked with immigrants who later qualified for U-visas or T-visas, if ever