But we can interrupt these lies by snatching the mic and telling a different story about our community, our neighborhoods. Join us for a brand new training, Neighbors as Storytellers, on Wednesday, September 9 at 6pm CT / 7pm ET to sharpen your mic-snatching skills. This is storytelling training for everyone! You don’t need a fancy title or to be a good public speaker. We all have a part to play in the strategic storytelling that undermines the authoritarian movement in our communities.

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Neighbor-to-neighbor organizing is essential for defeating authoritarianism in our communities. If we don’t tell our own stories then we are fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. Far too often stories are told about communities, not BY community members.

The modern American authoritarian movement relies on a narrative where our neighbors are the perpetual villain, which then justifies the false trade of our rights and freedoms for their concentration of power. So they spin a fiction that our immigrant neighbors are “invaders” who were “imported” by a cabal of un-American elites who give handouts in exchange for keeping them in power, squeezing “real Americans” in the middle. A lie that gives context for deploying a masked and militarized force onto our streets, who skirt due process to indiscriminately round up our neighbors with violence and chaos in a campaign of fear designed to erode all of our rights and freedoms.

Just as they need to undermine the distributed power of the ballot box, they tell stories that dress up their theft of working families’ agency in lies about protecting it. Authoritarians need to undermine their opposing force, democracy. But unsurprisingly, a system where you can meaningfully participate in all the decisions that govern your daily life is incredibly popular. So authoritarians must invent a boogeyman who attacks the integrity of our elections with the ridiculousness of a Scooby-Doo villain. They promote their fiction about fraud to create barriers to the ballot box and undermine the credibility of legitimate results.

These authoritarian stories are bullshit, but they resonate with too many of our neighbors because they get half of the story correct. American democracy hasn’t been working for working people. But authoritarians are intentionally wrong about both the source of our ills and our capacity to work together to solve them. Instead of the wrong kind of neighbors, it’s a combination of billionaires and bigots that has sharply limited the efficacy of American democracy.

They covertly argue for a political and policy agenda to diminish democracy with stories that stir anxieties about economic stability, community, and personal safety. It’s not just junk propaganda without an internal logic, but instead their stories speak to real popular concerns facing working families. Even as it is a story with polluted logic that will only end up accelerating the challenges we face.

The answer isn’t just to throw up our hands, convincing ourselves that bigoted authoritarian stories are too insurmountable to drown out. Instead, we need to sharpen our strategic storytelling and pair it with our organizing. We can and must tell better stories that speak to the real lack of say in the decisions that govern our lives and the real anxieties that keep us and our neighbors up at night. Strategic storytelling can create the urgency that invites our neighbors to take action together, building a bridge from what is to what could be.

Telling stories that undermine authoritarian movements requires the skills to win the narrative battle in our local communities. If we don’t learn to grab the mic, someone else will. But strategic storytelling isn’t just about the press. It is about the stories we tell each other, neighbor to neighbor. That means everyone has an important role in building a more democratic story that can challenge authoritarian ones.

If we continue to sharpen our storytelling skills alongside our organizing with our neighbors, we can beat back modern American authoritarianism and begin to demand more expansive democracy and citizenship that includes all of us who call this place home.

Wednesday, September 9

6pm CT / 7pm ET

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Doubling down on the deadly violence and chaos, Secretary Mullins appeared to be more concerned about public scrutiny of ICE actions than their deadly violence against our neighbors: “We’re turning up the heat on the streets… What I’m trying to do is remove us from the headlines every single day.”

More violence, chaos, and dehumanization but kept in the shadows without public accountability.

A reversal from the boisterous strategy, started in May of 2025 and led by Gregory Bovino, which sought to sensationally intimidate whole neighborhoods at once. The Bovino Strategy was stopped by collective community responses, as neighbors organized with neighbors across the county to expose ICE’s brutal tactics, forcing a shift in tactics.

The same ICE brutality and cruelty that drew national outrage hasn’t stopped, but their new strategy is just to not get caught on camera. They have moved from the named surges of “Midway Bitz,” “Operation Buckeye,” and “Catahoula Crunch” to the 15-minute traffic stop.

Rounding up more of our neighbors in less visible ways is designed to more quietly advance a white nationalist vision that seeks to purge our neighbors from public life and slowly erode all of our rights and freedoms.

We’re calling this the shadow surge. And it’s showing up in three specific ways.

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1. Quick, daily enforcement — outside the home, off camera

To avoid public scrutiny and accountability, the government’s tactics moved to where fewer cameras are rolling: the morning commute, the courthouse, and the parking lot. Secretary Mullins signaled the shift in tactics, saying, “We are going to take a different approach that can be more effective and less public-facing.”

Away from the cameras, the focus is about putting up numbers. ICE is pushing for averages of more than 2,000 arrests a day nationwide — nearly double the same point last year. This aggressive push for numbers is designed for harassment, racial profiling, and violence. The deadly consequences are made horrifically clear in the recent killings in Texas and Maine, where both victims shot by ICE were not actually ICE’s intended targets.

New reporting finds use of force is the “default” for most ICE interactions. To operate in the shadows away from community members’ cell phone cameras with increasing scale, ICE has turned to forced traffic stops. Not a typical speeding ticket interaction, ICE instead converges on a car in aggressive and quick interactions. Snatching neighbors on their way to work allows ICE to avoid pesky delays from due process and signed warrants. Despite their demonstrated deadly consequences, the ability to avoid due process and public accountability makes this attractive as a shadow surge tactic. Which is likely why the President was so insistent on the continued use of these ICE traffic stops after an initial announcement that they would be paused.

The erosion of due process and the deadly violence is a feature, not a bug, of the mass deportation machine. ICE’s shadow surge tactics are only furthering these authoritarian advances.

2. The proliferation of 287(g) agreements – show-me-your-papers traffic stops

ICE is also trying to hide behind local police, turning them into the front-line show-me-your-papers force with 287(g) agreements. As of this writing, there are 2,179 active agreements — up from roughly 135 when this Administration took office. A growth of over 1,470% in barely a year. According to the ACLU, at least 77.2 million people — nearly a third of the country — now live in a county with one of these show-me-you-papers agreements, where local police have been deputized to act as immigration agents. The effect: the officer who responds to a car accident, a noise complaint, or a welfare check can now double as a deportation agent.

This isn’t incidental. FWD.us estimates ICE could funnel between $1.4 and $2 billion to local agencies in 2026 alone to entice their cooperation, on top of the $137 million already flowing. Providing financial incentive to local law enforcement officers to hunt down our immigrant neighbors.

The expansion of these agreements is essential to their strategy as Sec. Mullins said, “I would love to see ICE become a transport more than the front line. If we get back ... into just simply working with law enforcement, we’re going to them, and we’re picking up these criminals from their jail.”

This part of the shadow surge is important for two reasons. (1) Arrests look like ordinary traffic stops instead of raids, making it much more difficult to document the roundup of our neighbors. (2) Co-opting local police in this way also overcomes the massive logistical challenge of disappearing thousands of our neighbors on a daily basis.

3. Detention without due process — disappearing detainees

Getting picked up is only the start. Once inside, the system is built to make people hard to find and harder to defend. Detainees are often rapidly moved out of state, making contact with family and lawyers difficult and denying constitutionally protected due process rights. A growing number of attorneys argue the transfers interfere with detainees’ access to attorneys and the courts. The typical detainee is now moved at least once, often across state lines and without warning to family or counsel.

The human cost of that is concrete: attorneys report having to refile bond motions 15 to 20 times as their clients get moved from state to state and courts lose jurisdiction each time. Reporting from Capital & Main describes detainees flown to Alaska shackled in a plane’s cargo hold, without seats or bathroom access, and unable to call family or a lawyer for days after landing.

The rise in these so-called “shuffle flights” has coincided with a massive and unprecedented increase in the number of habeas corpus petitions filed in federal courthouses across the country as attorneys scramble to get judges to release detainees held in states far from their homes.

Meanwhile, the living conditions inside detention facilities have continued to deteriorate, with deaths in ICE custody rising. As detention numbers swell, accelerated “mega hearings” mean the process from street to courtroom to removal can move faster than a family can even locate their loved one, let alone mount a defense.

How do we respond?

The violence and chaos of the mass deportation machine hasn’t abated. It has just sought the shadows. But neighbors can organize to document and tell the truth about what’s happening in their own communities. A camera undercuts ICE’s version of events. A network of organized neighbors demands the accountability the strategy is built to avoid.

That means doubling down: inviting more people into the block-by-block community defense networks already supporting neighbors in towns and cities across the country. It means telling the story — that the actual source of chaos and violence on our streets is federalized political repression, dressed up as public safety.

Join us to build that response. Join us for an updated ICE Watch training to learn how we can adapt our ICE Watch efforts to expose the violence and harm of the shadow surge, and its erosion of all of our rights and freedoms.

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It leaves us with a lot to do. Because while some of this can be fought in courtrooms and by states, communities of people – neighbors organizing - neighbors will have a huge impact, if not the greatest impact. At its core, the threat to elections is just one part of a modern authoritarian advance because the authoritarian movement can’t continue to consolidate power unless they subvert or sabotage free and fair elections.

A movement threat needs a movement response. Join us for our ongoing training series on how you can build a movement response in your neighborhood – Protect Elections. Demand Democracy. Part 2: Making a Plan – on Wednesday, July 15 at 6pm CT / 7pm ET. Note: Attending Part 1, while helpful context, isn’t a required prerequisite to attend Part 2.

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A movement threat means election sabotage will come from all directions. It will show up differently in different communities. Some threats will be coordinated attacks from the federal level, others will be state specific efforts, and others still will be lone actors not in official positions pushing their own election sabotage tactics. We think about the threat as 1000 cuts to the elections. Throughout our training series we will examine the threats and categorize them into three types to better plan our possible responses:

• Atmospheric: Propaganda promoting disinfo and distrust around the elections. This could be an election denier with a platform, robo calls, AI videos, billboards with false info - anything that’s contributing to this atmosphere of election sabotage. There are already massive and ongoing efforts to push the lie that our elections lack integrity or outright malicious lies to limit participation in the election.

• Physical: Intimidation or interference in election processes. Coordinated and individual efforts to demobilize Americans from registering or participating in the election. This could be bad actors intimidating people at the polls, ICE activity near polls, or patriot or militia groups threatening poll workers.

• Technical: The legislative, legal, or administrative maneuvers to impact elections. This could include attacks on vote by mail, racist redistricting, closing the polls while people are in line, refusal to certify the votes, ballot seizures, purging voter rolls, etc.

In part one of the series – Assessing the Threat – we discussed practical steps on how to get started by designing your own Neighborhood Midterm Action Plan. These Neighborhood MAPs are a tool to organize your neighbors with a clear message about how you can take informed action together to protect elections and demand a more robust democracy that delivers for all of us. (Don’t worry if you missed part one. We will offer this training throughout August and briefly cover how to get started with a Neighborhood MAP in the coming training on Wednesday)

In part two we focus on how you can incorporate your MAP into your broader organizing plans. We will talk about sharpening your community organizing and storytelling strategies. We will focus on how to organize to ensure sweeping documentation of authoritarian overreach around the election and how to develop local storytelling to expand the power of your organizing. We will dive deeper into election sabotage scenarios and how your neighborhood might organize a protective response.

Register today for Protect Elections. Demand Democracy. Part 2: Making a plan

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And while you’re here register and mark your calendars for part 3 on Wednesday, July 22, Protect Elections. Demand Democracy. Part 3: Sharpening your strategy.

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It’s not a car-jacking, it’s our federal government doing civil immigration enforcement. Civil enforcement.

Eric K. Ward, Race Forward Executive Vice President, calls this description, “both technically accurate and politically and morally inadequate.” He argues that, “Immigration enforcement has evolved under the Trump administration into something else entirely: federalized political violence and repression.”

After ICE shot and killed another neighbor in Biddeford, Maine, not a week after killing Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas, how else are we to characterize the Administration’s agenda? These deaths add to the gruesome statistics of deaths at the hands of ICE.

Thousands of people every week experience the terror of this violence while millions more experience intimidation and fear. As ICE has adopted covert surge tactics after the overt tactics of Gregory Bovino in order to avoid camera-induced accountability, more people experience this dangerous tactic on their morning commutes.

If they survive the initial contact with ICE, their lives are still in grave danger. As detentions swell, reports show deaths in ICE custody are increasing as well, making detention itself part of the story of escalating violence. The time from armed abduction off the street to being lost in a maze of inhumane detention systems can take mere hours. Due process has become the exception more than the expectation. As the bureaucratic system ensures scant avenues for relief from detention and a return home to loved ones, quick mega hearings that tear apart families are the more likely result.

But the fear and violence is a feature not a side effect. Every shooting, every death, super charges interactions with ICE for everyday people. Interactions not just charged with the possibility of family separation but the possibility of death. This deadly fear is the point, particularly for those like Stephen Miller who guide policy and set the tone for the Administration’s agenda, ensuring they are rooted in white nationalism. Use fear and force to control the American people, strip away rights and freedoms, and warp the expansive American experiment into a twisted authoritarianism of “heritage” Americans.

This sort of deadly fear is not brand new and has long been weaponized against the promise of American democracy. Black and Brown communities have long faced similar sorts of violent reaction from law enforcement entities, though the scale and severity require a new sort of response. Look to Memphis – the nation’s largest Black majority city – as a window into the future, where the Taskforce that includes the National Guard and other federal agencies like ICE and Homeland Security have shot five people since May - four were killed by federal agents.

When ICE shot people in Chicago, California, and Minneapolis, Americans were clear: they did not accept federal agents hurting people, violating their rights, or killing them. But there has been no accountability. Just a quieting down of enforcement noise. Tom Homan promised a “course correction” when Gregory Bovino was fired and Kristi Noem was supplanted. But ICE is as deadly as ever.

How do we respond?

Authoritarians would like you to believe their violence and ability to skirt accountability is inevitable. And the fear and despondency may urge us to turn away from the harsh attacks on our communities. But that plays into the hands of authoritarian movements.

Instead, our response must be loud, creative, and large.

They are attempting to hide the violence and chaos of their authoritarian agenda after learning how deeply unpopular it was when they announced their assault on our neighbors. But as ICE switches to covert surges, neighbors can organize with each other to document and tell the story of what is happening in their communities. Because a camera can undercut ICE lies and networks of organized communities can demand accountability.

This means doubling down on the work to invite more neighbors into the block-by-block community defense networks that are supporting our neighbors in communities all across the country. It means spreading the sort of contagious courage to tell the story of who actually spreads chaos and violence to our streets – it’s the forces of federalized political violence and repression masquerading as public safety.

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Stay tuned to STAC’s training page for upcoming offerings to help expand the power of neighborliness and community organizing that is putting up a valiant fight against advancing authoritarianism.

This contest over access to the ballot box is part of a larger and more fundamental struggle between Americans who seek to expand democracy and citizenship to all that call this land home, and those who exclude most of our families from their definition of a “real” American.

It is a contest over the decision-making process: a pull between concentrated power, where a few people make decisions, and distributed power, where all Americans may have a meaningful say in the decisions that govern their day-to-day lives.

This July 4th sees authoritarian movements on the march – as unaccountable masked agents roam our streets and efforts to distort our elections abound – while little is done to stem the mounting costs on working families. But the longer history of America is also about unrelenting struggles to expand democracy and citizenship for more of our neighbors. That history can be a celebratory reminder that generations before have prevailed against powerful authoritarian movements and expanded our democracy. We can do so again if we are committed to working together.

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If we want to prevail at this quarter of a millennium, it’s worth rooting ourselves in history through this framework.

The Declaration pulled in the direction of democracy, casting off a king, while the Constitution and the first formal citizenship policies of the nation affirmed plantation authoritarianism and white supremacy. Our earliest ballot boxes saw the most extreme restrictions as Black Americans were treated as subhuman, and citizenship through the Naturalization Act of 1790 was confined to “free white persons.”

For its first century, America had a strong authoritarian pull towards violent racist purges in chattel slavery and policies like the Indian Removal Act of 1830. On the nation’s 76th birthday, Frederick Douglass named how anemic the side of American democracy was in this contest in his famous “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” speech, wherein he argues for the just value of the Declaration to carry that same democratic aspiration to immediately abolish slavery. It was this abolitionist movement to expand democracy and citizenship, of which Douglass was a prominent part, that would eventually pull towards the passage of the Reconstruction Amendments – 13th, 14th, and 15th – greatly expanding access to the ballot box.

While far from a total win, for a time American democracy inched toward this more expansive vision. Meanwhile, deadly, violent authoritarian efforts persisted – built by Americans who sought to recreate new systems of white supremacy and the consolidation of power and profit. These American authoritarian movements eroded the gains of American democracy little by little,  and came to dominate much of America’s second century as well. They limited who could come based on racist ideas and policies like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Johnson-Reed Act, and established the authoritarianism of Jim Crow to exile Americans from the ballot box and participation in public life.

The response from Americans fighting on the side of freedom was fierce. They built movements that powered another significant expansion of democracy and citizenship. July 4th celebrations 60 years ago were held in that moment of expansion. The passage of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Immigration Act of 1965 formed the most comprehensive expansion of democracy and citizenship for those who called America home. This powerful trifecta sought to combat discriminatory practices in voting, use federal power to protect minority rights, abolish the restrictive national-origins quota system that favored Northern and Western Europeans, and much more. These laws passed thanks to the work of Black leaders and Americans of all stripes in the Civil Rights Movement, and they strengthened democracy for everyone with an expansion of rights, freedoms, and citizenship.

The Civil Rights Movement defeated white supremacy as the singular national story and gave Americans something better to work towards: a pluralistic and multiracial democracy where everyone has a voice. That narrative gained more and more support as the decades progressed from the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter. Over two-thirds of Americans supported the Black Lives Matter movement at its peak in 2020, a higher percentage of Americans than had supported MLK Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement decades before.

At the same time, the forces opposed to civil rights and a multiracial America didn’t retreat: they began to rebuild their movements and forge ahead. Since they couldn’t possibly have conceded  to Black power while clinging to white supremacy, they told a different story about a widespread conspiracy to destroy white America. They reframed the rejection of white supremacy as an attack on patriotism. They claimed that naturally occurring demographic change is an intentional act tantamount to “white genocide.” White nationalists used these narratives to implement draconian policies such as DHS’s immigration enforcement and the ban on Muslim refugees and even travelers.

An authoritarian’s most effective tool is to tap into people’s anxieties around demographic change, scarcity, and safety. If our democracy were working as it should, this wouldn’t be nearly as effective. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Their story says that if you can’t find a job, it must be the fault of immigrants, or that if you work full time but still can’t afford rent, it must be that your tax dollars are going to people who don’t want to work. Their story says we can only survive by thinking about our own needs. This resonates with many people because authoritarian and white nationalist leaders are weaponizing normal anxiety to manipulate outcomes in their favor. They are playing a long game to undo civil rights via the courts, legislation, culture, and education.

In the last year, the modern American authoritarian movement has rapidly advanced efforts to dismantle democracy through the current Trump administration, corporate cooperation, and the alignment of white nationalist networks. Subverting elections is a necessary next step for this authoritarian movement if it is to continue consolidating power. From Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, which weakened the Voting Rights Act, to the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6th, to the recent Callais decision, the pattern holds. The modern authoritarian movement is increasingly reliant on targeting the legitimacy of U.S. elections. In fact, the lead plaintiff in the Louisiana v. Callais case, Bert Callais, was a Jan. 6-er and has a history of promoting false election conspiracies.

The authoritarian movement is operating at the local level, the state level, the national level, and in the Supreme Court. It’s powerfully entrenched and interconnected. We can look to Indiana for one clear example. In December, the Indiana State Senate refused Trump’s call to redraw the state’s congressional maps to help Republicans win two more seats. In its recent primary, 5 of the 7 Trump-endorsed candidates beat their GOP incumbent opponents who had voted against redistricting – an indication of the authoritarian movement imposing its ideas in the mainstream. From the halls of Congress, to podcasts and talk radio, to school board races, town halls, and active clubs, this movement is disciplined, committed, and much bigger than individual elected leaders, far-right influencers, and even the president himself.

The modern authoritarian movement is built upon the white nationalist driven backlash to the three major bills that marked the advance of democratic movements.  Since their passage authoritarians have been organizing to once again rapidly shrink the quality of our democracy and citizenship. Their answers to the questions of who can be an American and what America should look like did not then, and do not now, include an expanded view of citizenship, rights, or freedoms.

They fear multiracial democracy precisely because they know it can bring social and economic progress to all of us, not just to a select few. That’s one of the many reasons we owe much to African American civil rights organizers who fought (at significant cost) for a version of America that did not yet exist.

Louisiana v. Callais is in many ways the culmination of this backlash against the pursuit of America’s multiracial democracy. The Supreme Court released its decision on April 29, effectively gutting the Voting Rights Act, and we are already seeing the authoritarian power grab as states across the nation rush to redraw their district maps, often with devastating effects for Black voting power. Much will be contested in the courts over the coming months and years, but we are unlikely to get back even a fraction of what’s been lost.

Our coalitions need to recognize this force as an enemy of democracy and fight for our own ideals and values. The majority of Americans reject the white nationalist agenda and prefer a vision of a pluralistic democracy with rights and freedoms intact. Because we are up against a powerful movement decades in the making, we need to respond with a powerful movement of our own, equipped with strategies that address the present and the future of American democracy.

Now is the time to build that movement, rapidly recruiting our neighbors to pull together on the side of democracy. Overconfident in their leverage, the modern authoritarian movement is pulling too hastily and aggressively against American democracy, and is in danger of slipping. Just as you would in a backyard game of tug-of-war, acting together with a strategic pull can make the other side stumble. Yes, we need to fight for an expansion of American democracy and citizenship regardless, because it is the system where we together can solve the challenges our families and communities face. But we must also realize we are at a strategic moment to catch authoritarians slipping before they plant their feet with a further consolidation of power.

Neither democracy nor the struggle to expand it is a spectator sport. We have to get in there and pull. On this 250th birthday, we should take lessons from our history to remember the perils of authoritarian consolidation and the possibilities of winning an expansion of American democracy. Victory isn’t guaranteed, but the contest is ongoing.

If you and your neighbors are looking for ways to get together to pull on the side of American democracy in this strategic moment as authoritarian forces continue to threaten the ballot box ahead of the midterms, we’ve got a training for you!

Join us Wednesday, July 8th, 6PM CT / 7PM ET for our new training series on building a movement response to the midterms called “Protect Elections. Demand Democracy.”

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• They must disempower voters and subvert free and fair elections in order to continue consolidating power; and

• If they don’t do that successfully, they are in a heap of trouble.

That means we as neighbors and community members will have lots of opportunities to fight back! Read more about what the next front in the authoritarian advance on democracy looks like. Then sign up for our Protect Elections Demand Democracy training on Wednesday, July 8 at 6pm CT / 7pm ET!

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July 8 is part one of a three-part training to help you build a localized movement response to the authoritarian threat to our election. Register now for all three sessions on the STAC training page!

See you soon!

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The neighbor-to-neighbor organizing that is occurring around the country and was so effective in Minnesota, is terrifying to an authoritarian coalition that is trying to dismantle the rights and freedoms of Americans. As is the outrage communities have expressed in the face of authoritarian assaults on voting rights.

Make no mistake, an authoritarian movement that feels it is losing its grip on the American people will weaponize federal law enforcement in new and frightening ways to chill dissent. These are not isolated investigations into organizations or individuals, they are maneuvers designed to brand democratic organizing as criminal in a plot to steal the power of working people.

Things You Need to Know:

• These attacks are not just about creating fear to sway the midterms. They are part of a much larger effort to rob American families of their rights, freedoms, and their agency to participate in the decisions that govern their day-to-day lives, undermining democracy beyond elections.

• The authoritarian movement’s strategy isn’t to ban voting outright, but to advance tactics like the raid in Ohio to rig the system in many small ways to favor the authoritarian movement come election day.

• This movement strategically directs its sharpest efforts at eroding democracy in non-white communities, knowing that degrading the democracy and citizenship of marginalized communities degrades it for all.

• The raid in Ohio, like election sabotage strategies that target voter registration and mobilization efforts, is an assault on the 50 percent of the population who don’t normally participate in elections – disproportionately the poor and marginalized communities for whom American democracy is least responsive.

• The threat to our elections doesn’t come from our neighbors – it comes from an authoritarian movement that has convinced those in and out of official positions to treat the practical participation of democracy as a criminal act.

• Authoritarians thrive off fear and a lie of inevitability, but American history has proven that neighbor-to-neighbor organizing can build movements to fend off authoritarian assaults while demanding an expansion of democracy that begins to work for all of us.

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How to make sense of this latest authoritarian advance

It’s a movement threat.

There is an imminent threat to our elections but it isn’t coming from efforts to register and educate voters. Instead, it emanates from authoritarian movements employing tactics, like the FBI raids, that dissuade full participation in our elections under the false pretense of protecting their integrity.

The raids are a manufactured inflection point in a massive years-long effort to peddle the conspiratorial lie about coordinated voter fraud threatening our elections. It creates a dramatic storyline to advance an authoritarian fiction that they are unable to illustrate with real evidence of coordinated fraud. The Ohio raids provide a spectacle that fits into their lie, giving an opportunity for the authoritarian movement to deny unfavorable results come November.

This is part of a set of tactics that make up a strategy to overwhelm the actual integrity of the midterm elections with different election sabotage efforts. The maneuvers in Ohio are designed to create a chilling effect in a critical Senate battleground. Look no further than the recent redistricting throughout the South in the last six weeks to see that this is far from the only election sabotage plot in the works. Investigations and indictments are just one tool in the authoritarian toolbox. We need to recognize that each of these individual attacks, even those with limited success or that operate as small localized sabotage, add up to a serious authoritarian threat.

The threat is to democracy, not just elections.

The modern authoritarian movement we are up against understands that democracy is about much more than just elections. The Ohio raids were designed to brand the practical day-to-day work of community organizing with the sting of criminality – creating the conditions where outreach to the 50 percent of Ohioans who don’t typically participate in the midterm elections is viewed with suspicion. The authoritarian goal is for power to be concentrated in the hands of a few, while the majority are locked out of representation and participation. This tactic is not just about voter registration but about the lie that the accent you speak with, what you believe, or how much is in your bank account confines our neighbors to second class citizenship.

Those already registered and in stable economic conditions are not likely to immediately feel the chilling effects from this election sabotage tactic. Instead, the largest impact will be on the efforts to organize poor, working-class, and marginalized citizens into our current democratic process. Not just to register to vote, but to organize in a myriad of ways to demand more of those in power and hold them accountable in a functioning democracy.

The political indictments in Minnesota in the days following the investigation in Ohio underscore this part of the authoritarian attack. Beyond the particulars of what the federal government will be able to prove in court, the sweeping generalizations of the public announcement of the arrests are meant to stop the neighbor-to-neighbor organizing that uses democratic tools to hold the government accountable to its citizens.

Though the investigations and indictments are devastating to those targeted individuals and organizations, they are largely an effort to cast a wider net of political intimidation to disrupt pro-democracy work. The authoritarian movement will use the midterms as an opportunity to deliver an onslaught of election sabotage tactics to tilt the midterms in their favor, but their broader goals are aimed at disabling the more effective democracy mechanisms of community organizing.

The response isn’t just more votes

Increasing voter participation is an important goal in a functioning democracy. But increased turnout alone, in reaction to voter suppression efforts, is insufficient. The effort to protect the elections from sabotage needs to demand more than the protection of the status quo.

The authoritarian strategy attempts to trap us solely in defense of a system that is not working for working people. They are hoping we go no further than defending the systems they are trying to sabotage. Instead, we need to demand an expansion of democracy and citizenship that actually meets the needs of our families and our communities.

What do we do about it?

We need a movement response to a movement threat. That means not waiting for others with specialized skills or positions of power to oppose the threats to our elections and our democracy. It means organizing with our neighbors to tell a different story than the one the authoritarian movement tells to justify their assault on our democracy.

How do we talk about it with neighbors?

There isn’t a magic set of messages that easily fixes our authoritarian problem. But there are some adaptable elements that can help communicate the threat and the need for a democracy that works for us all.

• Democracy isn’t working because we don’t have enough of it: American democracy has been failing to deliver. We see the failure to address major problems that make families struggle to get by. The solution is a more robust democracy, not an embrace of authoritarianism.

• Flip the security threat: It’s not our neighbors who threaten our elections but the authoritarian movement.

• This is the next stage in an authoritarian advance: Following the ICE surges at the beginning of the year, the attack on the midterms is the next major authoritarian advance to erode the rights and freedoms of the American people.

• Righteous anger over stolen agency: The varied assaults on the midterm elections are an active theft of people’s agency over their own lives.

• Expand citizenship: We need pathways to citizenship for our immigrant neighbors but also more expansive versions of rights and benefits so that we all have access to good jobs, healthcare, and educational opportunities.

How do we organize our neighbors?

The heart of the fight against authoritarianism is what’s happening at the community level. Whether it involves caring for neighbors, documenting ICE, or planning to defend local elections, we don’t beat authoritarianism unless communities are driving this movement. That is why the community defense networks that have formed in hundreds of U.S. cities and towns are so important. They are adaptable, they engage different kinds of people, and they are focused on addressing each community’s unique part in defending democracy.

Attacks on elections are designed to further discredit democracy in the eyes of the American people. We need a movement response that understands their strategy and develops one in return. Join us for a series of trainings that will help your community not just defend the elections but grow a proactive, movement-building response that demands a more robust democracy beyond the ballot count.

Join us July 8 - 6PM CT / 7PM ET - Protect Elections. Demand Democracy.

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On Friday some of our favorite movement organizers and leaders joined for the end of camp to provide some additional perspective.

“I think the authoritarian side does not require everyone to love each other. They require alignment around power. And what we need is alignment around people – people at the community level, around protecting people. It is expanding participation,” said Eric K. Ward, from Race Forward Action. “It’s around defending the ability of communities to organize, to vote, to teach, to worship, to protest and govern, and live, I think, without being targeted by, the state or political movements, that want them afraid.”

Speaking about the core fundamentals of successful and sustainable organizing Andrew Fahlstrom from Defend the 612 talked about the importance of one-to-one organizing conversations. “Even though you hate to do it, just sit down with every person in your group and know them. Understand why they’re involved, understand what they’re about, what they care about, because even if you don’t make an immediate connection, if you’re not best friends, you have enough context for common ground when the inevitable conflicts do come up, that you can navigate.” It gives you the ability to say, “I’m with you. I took the time to get to know you, and I want to continue to build with you.”

“I think there’s a lot of talk, especially in 2025, about building a big tent, making sure that there is space for lots of different views, people coming from lots of different perspectives, to be able to push back on authoritarianism.” Liz Wester from Protect Democracy said, “I think that we view it a little bit more as a really big tailgate, or a really big, big potluck. People are coming to this from all different perspectives. They might not agree on every single issue or every single thing, but they are bringing what they can bring to the fight and to the movement.”

In response to the difficulty organizing under authoritarian attacks Lisa Sherman Luna from Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Right Coalition outlined the need for a multi-layered approach to our strategies. “It’s really hard for me, from the vantage point of being in Tennessee, to say that it’s only defensive or only offensive, because I think there’s a combination of both, and we see crises as an opportunity to build for the long term.”

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SO WHAT’S NEXT?

Our fight to expand expand democracy and citizenship is getting started!

There is a lot of work to do this summer to prepare to defend the election from sabotage and build a movement with our neighbors for an America that we deserve.

The threat to the upcoming midterm elections is of a different magnitude than most of us have experienced in our lifetimes. The modern American authoritarian movement has rapidly advanced efforts to dismantle democracy - and subverting elections is the next step for this authoritarian movement, if it is to continue consolidating power.

We are expecting an onslaught of election sabotage tactics from localized and national forces, and we need a movement response.

Join us for a series of trainings that will help your community not just defend the elections but grow a proactive, movement-building response that demands a more robust democracy beyond the ballot

Protect Elections. Demand Democracy

Wednesday – July 8

6PM CT / 7PM ET

Register Here

“Democracy is not some object sitting in a glass case in Washington, D.C. Democracy is the work of people, and it’s what people do. To make sure other ordinary people, our neighbors, our families, have the power over the conditions of their lives, and in that way I think we are still very much winning.” Calling us into this moment, Eric said we have to “challenge authoritarianism in our communities, wherever it’s taking root, not just on the issue we’re interested in, but we don’t chase every provocative moment like a dog chasing every car on the street, right? We focus on where power’s being captured, where people are being intimidated, and where participation is being chilled.”

Our closing virtual campfire is open to all. At 2PM CT / 3PM ET TODAY we are hosting a virtual discussion with seasoned movement leaders from across the country to offer strategies and analysis from various vantage points across our movement about the authoritarianism threatening our communities. We will be joined by:

• Andrew Fahlstrom, Defend the 612

• Lisa Sherman Luna, Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Right Coalition

• Eric K. Ward, Race Forward

• Liz Wester, Protect Democracy

Today, Friday June 12 at 2PM CT / 3PM ET join us for Smash* Authoritarianism Summer Camp closing virtual campfire, register HERE.

—

*We smash authoritarianism through organizing and movement building; we don’t condone smashing actual things you don’t own. We are committed to strategic non-violence. Also, we just like the word SMASH :)

Register Here

With that in mind, States at the Core (STAC) is thrilled to invite you to the Smash* Authoritarianism Summer Camp—a virtual, super-practical week of training designed to turn your community defense network into a strategic powerhouse.

Claim your spot

When: Monday, June 8 – Friday, June 12, 2026 (90-min evening training sessions at 6 pm CT / 7 pm ET)

Where: Your living room (it’s 100% virtual!)

Schedule:

Mon 6/8: It’s all about Community Defense

Day 1 at camp will cover how to grow and make stronger community defense networks that are ready for what comes next… and next… and next.

Tues 6/9: You’ve got skills

Day 2 is all about those community organizing skills. We will focus on a set of fundamental organizing skills for expanding the capacity of our community defense work.

Wed 6/10: Do I have a story for you

Day 3 is about winning the popular narrative and melding our organizing with our stories. Learn practical skills for constructing the story, developing spokespersons, and engaging with the media.

Thus 6/11: Choose Your Adventure

Start the practical work of planning campaigns, developing strategic analysis, and integrating narrative work into your organizing.

Fri 6/12: Smashing is Fun!

Close out the week with a day of camp fun. We’ll host both a creative action training and a panel of movement leaders and experts on smashing authoritarianism!

We’ve already trained over 45,000 people at no cost. We believe that movement-building skills should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their bank account. This is a “donate-what-you-can” camp. Whether you can chip in $1 or $100, your contribution helps keep this work sustainable. But if things are tight, don’t sweat it—your presence and your energy are the most important things you can bring.

RSVP HERE >> Claim Your Spot Today!

Have additional questions? Check out our FAQ or contact us at info@stacup.org

How are we to process this tragedy? The familiarity of this type of story adds to the pain, risking a false diagnosis of its inevitability – a problem we are powerless to solve. A horror, yes. Indirect culprits, many. But ultimately little to be done about the constant specter of randomized racist political violence. There is danger in this pattern of tragedies that receive little more than passive platitudes, making the next mass shooting appear more inevitable.

The threat of a compounding tragedy looms large because we know there are things that can be done, but Congress won’t act, the President won’t sign, and the Court won’t uphold. We all know that common sense gun reforms are not coming in the wake of more deaths of our fellow Americans. A massive mental health funding bill isn’t around the corner. Regulation on tech to halt the monetization of hate isn’t forthcoming. Not because these things don’t have the support of the majority of Americans but because our democracy is not working for the American people. It’s failing them. And that failure is deadly.

A modern American authoritarian movement would have you embrace the inevitability of both the pattern of racist political violence and the demise of democracy. While the attack in San Diego has many contributing culprits, it is this authoritarian movement that is at the center of deadly threats to our neighbors.

Is this authoritarian movement that has sent federal agents to round up our neighbors because of the color of their skin and the accent they speak with – including more than 16,000 in San Diego – directly responsible for the mass murder yesterday? No. Did the same authoritarian movement that is attempting to steal meaningful representation from Black Americans throughout the South pull the trigger at the Islamic Center? No. But is it a major contributor to the toxic environment in which this pattern of racist political violence has emerged? Absolutely.

There is a similar analytical lesson to be drawn from the climate crisis. It’s impossible to point to one hurricane and say that it is the result of the climate crisis. But fueled by the climate crisis, hurricanes are becoming more frequent and more deadly. Similarly, we cannot point directly to the authoritarian movement for definitive blame for a singular racist mass murder, but we know that the authoritarian movement is creating the political climate that makes this violence more frequent and more deadly.

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These tragedies are complex. It’s not just the prevalence of guns or lack of quality mental health services or radicalization of young men online. Nor is this tragedy the result of one post or statement from a political leader or online “content creator” weaponizing an unregulated algorithm to monetize hate. Nor is it solely the unchecked Islamophobia pervading our country. The mass shooting in San Diego, as with the others that share its pattern, was likely the result of all of these overlapping factors and more. But what prevents solutions to address our problem of racist and political violence isn’t its complexity, it is a system of American democracy that is in desperate need of reconstruction.

This is where the authoritarian movement becomes the locus of our current predicament. While authoritarians have been throwing sand in the gears of democracy for decades, they now wield mainstream political power that blocks attempts to fix the mechanisms of democracy, while continuing to strip away more. Authoritarian mouthpieces instead argue that we should trade rights, freedoms, and accountability for the promise of alleviating threats and anxieties we share for inevitable forces beyond our control.

Contrary to the argument of authoritarians, working Americans are smart enough to make multiracial democracy work. Instead, the problem is too little democracy. Working families have too little meaningful input into the decision making process for the rules governing their lives. The problem of mounting political violence is one of systemic failure. To address the problem, even in part, requires addressing the underlying problem of insufficient democracy. It requires building the movement to demand a more robust democracy. Leveling it up to access the suite of tools we need to begin to address this threat.

It's a big answer to a big problem. We face a movement problem and need a movement response. But it does mean there is something meaningful that you can do about it. Building a democracy movement is not a quick nor easy endeavor but Americans have already begun. In neighbor-to-neighbor conversations that seek to protect each other from the various threats of the authoritarian movement. Mourn those lost and the tragedy of the murder and then have a conversation with a neighbor or organize a community meeting. Organizing in the places and spaces we find ourselves is exactly how we build the movement to turn back the authoritarian one.

Need to be in community with others organizing against authoritarian advances and the mass deportation machine? Join us tomorrow night for our ICE Watch and Building for Community Defense training 6pm CT / 7 ET. We will continue to try to put this latest racist mass shooting in context alongside practical skills for organizing in your community.

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Following the Civil War, an anti-democratic movement grew in the South in reaction to reconstruction – a first attempt at multiracial democracy. This reactionary movement was opposed to the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans, and the expansion of rights that guaranteed them citizenship, protection under the law and suffrage. Apparently, for many who were part of this movement, three centuries of keeping their fellow humans in bondage and subjugation was not long enough. This backlash to reconstruction was called “Redemption” and it used violent racism to reestablish a version of plantation authoritarianism. Its eventual success established Jim Crow, reducing citizenship of Black Americans to second-class status and undermining the promise of American democracy for over half a century.

Now a new authoritarian movement seeks its own Redemption, undermining the advance of multiracial democracy turning back the hard-fought expansion of citizenship and democracy won when the Civil Rights Movement overthrew the authoritarianism of Jim Crow.

Look to Tennessee to see this new Redemption in action, as an authoritarian movement again employs a racist strategy to cheapen American citizenship and undermine American democracy.

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On May 5 Governor Bill Lee called the Tennessee legislature into a special session to redraw the state’s U.S. House map. Not two weeks prior, the legislative session had closed after passing a slate of bills from the white nationalists’ wish list. Then, a U.S. Supreme Court decision gave Lee and the Republican-controlled legislature an opening to further advance their authoritarian agenda. They moved quickly to steal a congressional seat from Black Memphians.

The Supreme Court majority released its decision in Louisiana v. Callais on April 29, gutting the last vestiges of the Voting Rights Act – the law that was meant to overturn and prevent racist barriers to the ballot box. In overturning a Louisiana congressional map as unconstitutional, the Supreme Court made the absurd argument that race could not be considered when looking to prevent racist redistricting efforts. In other words, the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for Louisiana to draw maps that sought to ensure meaningful representation of non-white voters. In doing so the Court also suitably eroded the expanded powers away from Congress that were granted in Reconstruction to set election guardrails. A ruling that advances authoritarian goals of undermining multiracial democracy in the short and long term.

Tennessee Gov. Lee and his allies understood they could now attack the only Black-mjority district in their state and immediately moved to eliminate the district. The move came even as primary elections under the current map were already well underway.

By May 7 both Tennessee chambers had passed the new racist map — 64–25 in the House (with three Republicans abstaining) and 25–5 in the Senate — and Lee signed it the same day. The new lines carve up the Memphis-based 9th District, splitting it across three districts that stretch hundreds of miles east into rural, heavily Republican territory. They also took the opportunity to further fracture the area around Nashville, which the Republican majority had already gerrymandered back in 2021.

The map faces legal challenges, but the theft will likely stand through the midterms, given how deeply embedded authoritarian movements have become in the bureaucratic structures of power.

A vote, in a functioning democracy, is the tool a citizen uses to hold those in power accountable for funding their kids’ schools, making their grandmother’s medications affordable, and ensuring groceries don’t break the bank. The precise cracking of this district intentionally strips Black families in particular and working families more broadly of the leverage they need to demand anything from the people who govern them. It is the theft of working people’s agency—and the insulation of those in power from any accountability.

It is not the political job of one Tennessee Democrat that has been stolen. It is American democracy itself being stolen out from under working families.

Memphians are not the only ones being robbed. With congressional midterm elections closely contested, this theft is also about insulating the Administration and its allies from accountability— stripping Americans of the power to demand fixes to the many challenges working families face.

Democracy denied to one set of Americans undermines the system for all.

Moreover, this authoritarian maneuver normalizes a bureaucratic white nationalism—a methodical legislative and legal stripping of meaningful representation from non-white Americans— that can be, and already is being, leveraged against other communities.

White nationalism is the driving force behind the experimental federal–state authoritarian collaboration underway in Memphis. The theft of their congressional seat comes after eight straight months of ongoing harassment and intimidation of Black and Brown residents by the Memphis Task Force. Created by an executive memo in Washington in September 2025, the Memphis Task Force is a test expansion of 287(g) agreements—pushing them beyond immigration dragnets into broader sweeps of the community. Under the false pretext of public safety, the Task Force brands the city’s residents with a badge of suspected criminality based on the color of their skin, the accent they speak with, or their religious beliefs. Including the National Guard, Memphis remains occupied by this collaborative force. Memphis, 62% Black, nestled in a deeply hostile state, is now stripped of meaningful representation in Washington its residents would need to protest such an occupation.

Notably, the House speaker has moved to strip legislators of their committee assignments as retaliation for their objections to the congressional theft. Creating more evidence of the raw hostility to democracy from the authoritarian movement that is animating those in positions of power in Tennessee.

The congressional theft through redistricting is also the dramatic capstone to far-reaching authoritarian advance during this year’s legislative session. At the direction of Stephen Miller—White House Senior Advisor and promoter of white nationalist conspiracy theories—the TN legislature passed a set of extreme anti-immigrant bills. They expanded the racial profiling scheme through a mandatory expansion of 287(g) agreements, which convert local police into a show-me-your-papers force. To shield this localized authoritarian overreach, the legislature made it a crime to document law enforcement activity within 25 feet, or to release the identities of ICE agents. They also pushed Miller’s favored white nationalist conspiracy—that immigrants constitute a literal invasion—to its irrational conclusion by making it a crime to fail to report the immigration status of neighbors who use public services, like the emergency room. And beyond this nativist assault, they created a registry for trans Tennesseans and diverted more public funds toward private education.

The sum total of the session is an attempt to construct a state where the powerful can exclude and punish anyone who doesn’t fit their exclusionary vision of a “real” American. What we are seeing is not isolated erosions by a few anti-democratic actors, it’s a vast authoritarian movement that has fully captured the imagination of those in power in Tennessee. They are advancing authoritarianism on various fronts largely through a strategy that targets Black and Brown Americans first.

This is not the first time Tennessee has been used as a staging ground for an authoritarian assault on democracy.

Following the defeat of the Confederacy, a broad movement sought to reconstruct the core structures of the United States, expanding citizenship and attempting to realize the promise of American democracy. Most critically, it transformed our neighbors from slaves to citizens. Violently hostile to movements for multiracial democracy, the Ku Klux Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866. Though now the most notorious of these groups, the Klan was only part of a much broader movement to undermine the advance of democracy. While most Tennesseans rejected the Klan, and the Reconstruction governor actively battled its rise, Redemption ultimately won out, ushering in the widespread adoption of Jim Crow.

But Tennessee has also played host to the movements that turned back that authoritarian consolidation. It was in pitched contests across Tennessee and the South—where the authoritarianism of Jim Crow was strongest—that a movement was built to defeat it. By expanding democracy and citizenship once again, the Civil Rights Movement helped bring the country closer to the promise of a multiracial democracy.

Now Tennessee is once again the stage for a Redemption movement rearing its ugly head; attempting to kill democracy with legislation, policing, and bureaucracy.

The loud crash of the redistricting theft should alert us to the ongoing heist, but the authoritarian movement hasn’t fully made off with our democracy just yet. A closer look reveals the multi-pronged assault of authoritarian movements, as well as its expansive list of enemies. But the Tennessee story is also a reminder that, with organizing and investment, authoritarianism can be sent packing.

Part Two will explore this authoritarian movement in more depth and Part Three will examine what we can do about it. This movement is not confined to Tennessee, but its story reveals the stark consequences of failing to turn it back.

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We at STAC are looking for new ways to hear from you. We are going to add these questions to some of our blogs but always feel free to drop us a line at info@stacup.org

States at the Core is a small crew of organizers working with local folks across the country. Our mission is pretty simple. Help everyday people fight authoritarianism; help people fight for their freedoms. You probably know us through our training programs, but this is only a small part of what we do. Everything we offer - whether training or supporting people on the ground - is free.

We raise funds for this tremendous work from foundations and generous individual donors. We do as much as we can on a small budget. Compared to authoritarian groups, our resources are minuscule. Despite that, we - with you as our partner - are collectively putting up a valiant fight against advancing authoritarianism!

Support STAC

While authoritarian movements are similarly attempting to erode the rights and freedoms of working families with a racist strategy throughout the South, the Tennessee story is a clarion call in a tug-of-war between movements for authoritarianism and democracy. A historic authoritarian battleground, Tennessee has played host to the birth of the Klan as authoritarian movements sought deadly violence to reverse the expansion of democracy under Reconstruction. But Tennessee was also home to civil rights struggles that organized to defeat the entrenched authoritarianism of Jim Crow. Now a modern authoritarian movement has again made Tennessee a pivotal battleground, targeting Black and Brown Americans as second class citizens in a larger contest to undermine American democracy.

The Louisiana v. Callais decision is the product of a decades-long push of an authoritarian movement from the margins to the mainstream. The latest racist redistricting authoritarian maneuvers are best understood in this broader context. This win for the authoritarian movement is possible because of its prior efforts. It is not the master plan designed for the benefit of one individual but a complex movement that believes America is served best by authoritarianism, not a multi-racial democracy. They are moving to erode democracy little by little, here and there.

Abandoning Tennessee and the South to authoritarianism in the hopes of reinforcing democracy elsewhere is a fool’s strategy. History tells us that we can overcome entrenched authoritarianism with aggressive sustained organizing where it is the most volatile. While more recent examples have revealed the power of neighbor-to-neighbor organizing to resist authoritarian assaults. We face a movement threat, which means we need a movement response. We haven’t seen the last of an election sabotage strategy, but the loud crash of the racist redistricting should alert us all to the authoritarian movement activity robbing our nation’s democracy.

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We at STAC are going to release a three-part series over the next two weeks to put the latest authoritarian front into context to inform a strategy to stave off election sabotage and demand a democracy that works for working people.

• In part one we will dive into Tennessee, looking at how the Taskforce in Memphis and the legislative session alongside the redistricting rhyme with Tennessee’s history of reactionary authoritarian movements.

• Part two will step back to situate Louisiana v. Callais in a longer assault on multiracial democracy by this modern authoritarian movement.

• In part three we will offer a framework and strategy for building a movement response. Extracting lessons from past and ongoing movements, as we outline an upcoming training series where you can sharpen your skills for the work ahead.

But as we often say, don’t wait. Get started now! Tomorrow night we will host a training to help your community defense network assess how the authoritarian movement’s mass deportation machine is showing up in your community and how you can organize a response. Join us for ICE Out Everywhere tomorrow - Wednesday May 13th at 6pm CT / 7pm ET

Register Here

Back by popular demand! Register here to join us Wednesday night for Creative Action training. Anyone can pull off a great action with some creative juices, a plan, and a few friends. Join us for this 75-minute training on how to build and amplify a great action, or just be a stellar participant. Bring your creative thinking cap and some snacks, this one is fun and a little profane. Best part? This training is sign interpreted!

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Summer Summer Summer Camp!

We’re hosting *Smash* Authoritarianism Summer Camp!

Come join us for a week of training to expand and sharpen your community defense organizing skills.

Over the last year we have witnessed the power of local community defense in repelling authoritarian incursions. As authoritarian forces test ‘quieter’ tactics and turn their focus to the upcoming elections, we are offering an intensive training camp to kick off a summer of strong local organizing.

Virtual Smash Summer Camp will kick off Monday, June 8, and run through Friday, June 12, 2026. It will include four days of evening training sessions and culminate with fun and inspiring Friday events (camp songs optional). The week will include ask-me-anything breakouts with experienced organizers and leaders from across the country.

Join Camp!

We have trained over 40,000 people free of charge! We’re proud to make our training and programming accessible to anyone. That said, this work takes resources and we believe is worth the investment. This is a donate-if-you’re-able Summer Camp. Whether you can give $1 or $100, we would be exceptionally grateful for the support. Seriously, any amount that works for you.

Even if pocketbooks are tight, we still want you there - your presence is the most important contribution. Simply click here and register for free.

*We smash authoritarianism through organizing and movement building, we don't condone smashing actual things you don't own. We are committed to strategic non-violence. Also, we just like the word smash =)*

Since the beginning of the Trump Administration in 2025, there has been over a 1,000% increase in the number of official local police agreements to collaborate with ICE or for local police to do the job of rounding up our neighbors for them.

Rapidly expanding 287(g) agreements are turning local police into a national show-me-your-papers force, with devastating consequences for our rights and freedoms. Turning back this quiet bureaucratic advance of authoritarianism is critical for a robust and thriving democracy.

• A 287(g) agreement allows your law enforcement agency to act as an extension of ICE, policing the immigration status of our neighbors, detaining them for ICE to deport.

• The proliferation of these agreements has touched much of the United States since 2025, increasing instances of blatant racial profiling by law enforcement in the process.

• The Administration has been loudly cheerleading these agreements because the only way to logistically carry out their promised round-up of tens of millions of American families is by convincing local law enforcement to act as their authoritarian enforcers.

• These agreements have to be initiated - and can be canceled by - local officials, which is why neighbors across the country are standing up to this authoritarian advance, organizing against these agreements in their community.

• Join us for an ICE Out Everywhere: Stop the mass deportation machine in your community training where we focus in on a community response to these 287(g) agreements on Wednesday Apr 29, 2026 06:00PM CT 07:00 PM ET

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The threats from authoritarian movements don’t always come with the sort of loud, chaotic violence we saw in Minneapolis, Chicago, and numerous other ICE surges over the last year. Often, authoritarians attempt to erode our rights and freedoms with quieter levers of federal and state bureaucracy. Among the more concerning of these levers are 287(g) agreements – voluntary contracts that effectively turn local police departments into satellite offices for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

What is a 287(g) agreement? And how does it work?

The program was created under a provision of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, allowing state or local law enforcement agencies to enter into formal agreements with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to deputize local law enforcement as extensions of ICE. This includes checking the immigration status of people during traffic stops (show-me-your-papers), in local jails, issuing “detainers” to hold individuals past their release dates, and accessing federal databases to check the papers of our neighbors. The extent of their role depends on which of the three types of 287(g) programs local agencies sign:

• Jail Enforcement Model (JEM): Authorizes officers to identify, process, and interrogate individuals booked into local jails or detention facilities regarding their immigration status to place detainers on them.

• Warrant Service Officer (WSO) Model is a more limited version of the jail model, which allows authorized local officers to serve ICE administrative warrants and detainers within their jails.

• Task Force Model (TFM) is the worst of the bunch. It permits local officers to identify, interview, and arrest noncitizens for immigration violations during routine policing, such as traffic stops or community encounters.

Thanks to researchers at organizations like the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) we have a clear picture of what jurisdictions have entered into these agreements. Check out their interactive map HERE.

Why the massive proliferation? And at what cost?

Rounding up, detaining, and deporting tens of millions of our neighbors that the Administration gleefully promised is a logistical feat that an army of ICE agents cannot pull off alone even with the influx of tens of billions of dollars. If the administration was going to be able to pull off its mass deportation designs, they needed local police to help them do the dirty work. Not just with the round ups but to act as the local enforcement of the “right kind” of American, turning the color of your skin, the accent you speak with or neighborhood you live into justification for suspicion.

Enter the 287(g) agreement. The Administration has latched onto this provision to quietly roll out a white nationalist agenda.

On his first day in office, President Trump issued Executive Order (EO) 14159, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” which mandates the rapid expansion and simplification of 287(g) agreements. This EO directs the DHS to maximize state and local law enforcement participation, to create what they call a “nationwide deportation force.” The EO, which cites a white nationalist conspiracy theory of an “invading force,” eases enrollment into the agreement, largely focusing on promoting the TFM as a means to reach their stated target number.

Since then, 1,562 new agreements have been signed (Before Jan. 2025, only 135 agreements were on the books). Of the 1,697 agreements now in existence across nearly all states, ICE has signed 1,028 Task Force Model agreements, making it by far the most common.

The immediate result, as outlined by the American Immigration Council, is the weaponization of routine local law enforcement. When a town’s sheriff is incentivized to act as an ICE agent, a broken taillight or a failure to signal becomes the entry point for the deportation pipeline. What was sold as a way to make cities safer, instead has meant hundreds of communities in fear of racial profiling and over-policing.

In Tennessee, the “Memphis Safe Task Force” has shown what an aggressive state-federal partnership looks like - curtailing rights and freedoms on a near-daily basis. Since its inception, the task force has faced criticism regarding its tactics and impact on community safety, including allegations of trampling of civil liberties, disproportionate targeting of minority communities, and traumatic, aggressive policing tactics that have frightened residents and fostered distrust. As we previously outlined, the Task Force was touted as a tool to address “out-of-control” crime, but in reality provides cover for a slow erosion of fundamental rights. It is the most expansive adaptation of the Task Force model and should be an alarming illustration of authoritarian movement designs.

The promise of an influx of federal dollars to support these partnerships seems appealing, but in fact, 287(g) agreements burden taxpayers by impacting local law enforcement budgets and diverting officers from their regular duties. The program is actually more of a “resource drain” because while the federal government provides the training, the local jurisdiction remains responsible for the salaries, benefits, and liability insurance of the deputized officers while they perform federal duties. And local taxpayers often foot the bill for the increased duration of detention when our neighbors are held at ICE’s behest.

Historically, the federal government does not reimburse local law enforcement for their participation. The first year of operating a 287(g) program cost some counties over $5 million. Several counties have even had to raise property taxes to pay for the program. And most notably, the 287(g) agreements can expose local governments to costly lawsuits, such as the $43 million in litigation costs stemming from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and former Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s participation over a decade ago.

What’s next?

In Tennessee, lawmakers recently passed a slate of anti-immigrant legislation proposed by Stephen Miller, including Senate Bill 2223, requiring sheriffs to partner with ICE, a move that will no doubt come with an added price tag for residents of the Volunteer State. In Kansas, a similar bill (SB 178) aims to make it easier for sheriffs to join 287(g) agreements.

This trend of state-level authoritarian wheel greasers controlling local law enforcement is already codified in Florida and Georgia, where cooperation is mandated by law. Meanwhile, Missouri demonstrates that even without state-level mandates, the ‘deputization’ of local police can explode, as that state now maintains one of the highest volumes of agreements in the country.

Furthermore, the Laken Riley Act (H.R. 7511) and similar proposals in the ‘Immigration 2026’ enforcement package seek to strengthen the existing federal-state task force model, leaving the door open for more harm by prioritizing federal immigration dragnets over public safety and community trust.

Expansion of Show-Me-Your-Papers Racial Profiling

These types of agreements all but encourage racial profiling, turning our local police into a show-me-your-papers force that tells residents that, because of the color of their skin or the accent they speak with, they don’t belong and should be treated with suspicion.

In places like Alamance County, North Carolina, and (again) Maricopa County, Arizona, past 287(g) programs led to widespread allegations of civil rights violations, racial profiling, and lawsuits. A Department of Justice investigation found that sheriff’s deputies in Maricopa County routinely targeted Latinos for traffic stops and arrests based solely on race. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, at least 65% of 287(g)-participating agencies have records of a pattern of racial profiling and other civil rights violations, including excessive use of force.

When federal, state, and local law enforcement are thrust into these partnerships without much forethought (as is often the case, given the rapidly growing numbers), the result is a recipe for civil rights violations. Local police take their cues from federal agents, abusive tactics spread, and when the dust settles, no one takes responsibility. For example, earlier this year, a raid at a racetrack in Idaho resulted in the arrests of more than 100 people, zip-tying children and adults, including U.S. citizens. In the aftermath, local police denied their involvement, and those detained and separated from their children found it difficult to pinpoint exactly who was responsible.

Authoritarian tools are inherently blunt instruments. When we give local police the power to demand papers based on “reasonable suspicion,” we are authorizing racial profiling as a matter of policy. And when local jails become processing centers for federal enforcement, the administrative errors, biometric glitches, and inherent biases of the system lead to the wrongful detention of citizens—particularly those of color.

This infrastructure is catching American citizens in its teeth. According to a report by ProPublica, ICE, under Trump, has detained hundreds of US citizens.

What can neighbors do to push back the authoritarian advance?

Coupled with the expansion of a permanent detention infrastructure, the expansion of 287(g) doesn’t just threaten our immigrant neighbors, family, and friends. The tools of mass deportation are explicitly designed to harm and “other” those deemed un-American. Protecting all of our neighborhoods from the cruelty of Trump’s “mass deportation” agenda is about defending the core principles of a free and democratic America. Here are three things to consider to push back on the expansion of 287(g) agreements:

— Tell the Story —

We must persistently tell the stories of what local and federal enforcement are doing to our communities. Here are some examples:

• Flip the script: 287(g) agreements won’t make our communities safer. We all want safe communities, but it’s not law enforcement that makes our community safer. This targeted harassment is creating harm and chaos in our communities.

• Create a bigger we: What is happening here is about all of us, not just our immigrant neighbors. The rights and freedoms for most Americans are at risk.

• Show a way forward: We stand for something different, a community that demands something more than over policing our neighbors but safe and welcoming communities. We are showing what democracy looks like by standing up together to protect each other.

— Demand More From Your Elected Leaders —

The expansion of the 287(g) program is not inevitable. Across the country, communities are successfully pushing back against the “deputization” of local police. Advocate for state and local laws that explicitly prohibit law enforcement agencies from entering into or renewing contracts with ICE.

• In early 2025 and 2026, states like Maryland, New Mexico, and Maine joined California and Illinois in passing comprehensive bans on local ICE contracts.

• Columbus City Council recently passed emergency ordinances to restrict ICE operations within city limits. Similar “Trust Acts” have been enacted or strengthened in cities like Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.

— Organize Against Upcoming Agreements —

Direct community pressure is often the first line of defense. When a sheriff or council proposes a new agreement, visibility is your strongest tool.

• In St. Charles, MO, a coalition of residents and teachers recently organized news conferences and packed council meetings to voice opposition to a proposed 287(g) task force. While the council moved forward, the mobilization forced leaders to include “opt-out” clauses and high standards of transparency.

• Residents in Lebanon County, PA, used public testimony and resolution requests to delay or discourage new federal detention and enforcement partnerships.

• In most jurisdictions, the Sheriff is a directly elected official. If they choose to prioritize federal immigration dragnets over local public safety, they can be replaced with those not willing to participate in the authoritarian advance.

STAC is hosting an upcoming ICE Out Everywhere training that will focus on tackling 287(g) agreements in your community. Join us on Wednesday, Apr 29, 2026 06:00PM CT / 07:00 PM ET

REGISTER

States at the Core is a small crew of organizers working with local folks across the country. Our mission is pretty simple. Help everyday people fight authoritarianism; help people fight for their freedoms. You probably know us through our training programs, but this is only a small part of what we do. Everything we offer - whether training or supporting people on the ground - is free.

We raise funds for this tremendous work from foundations and generous individual donors. We do as much as we can on a small budget. Compared to authoritarian groups, our resources are minuscule. Despite that, we - with you as our partner - are collectively putting up a valiant fight against advancing authoritarianism!

Support STAC

I’m hosting two upcoming trainings on how ICE enforcement - and the mass deportation machine overall - are expanding into communities across the country, and what we can do about it.

Register for Beyond ICE Watch

Come to Beyond ICE Watch training today (Friday!) focused on community defense networks and how we organize and GROW to protect our neighbors, our communities, and our democracy.

Then, join me Wednesday night (4/29) for ICE Out Everywhere! We’ll be talking about the ways the mass deportation machine is threatening your community and get into the nitty gritty of how cities, suburban neighborhoods, or rural areas are organizing. This training will help you start or further a plan to get ICE, in all its forms, OUT of your community. BONUS: We will have have an organizer from Columbus, Ohio, join us to talk about their ICE Out victories. Through sustained, local organizing and action, Columbus neighbors are winning against mass deportation. We love them and you will too :)

Register for ICE OUT EVERYWHERE

The neighbor-to-neighbor organizing you’ve been part of has forced a change (yay!) But the mass deportation machine is a $100 billion plus effort that won’t stop unless we have a plan to confront it at every turn. If you are a part of a rapid response network, or looking to create a more sustainable community defense effort, these two trainings are for you. Plus, you’ll get to spend so much time with me!

See you later! -Jill

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The neighbor-to-neighbor organizing that built community defense networks in Chicago, Minneapolis, and across the country forced the Administration to switch their tactics. But the authoritarian threat from the mass deportation machine hasn’t abated. Instead, the $100 billion plus mass deportation machine continues to expand into our communities in a variety of ways - sometimes very quietly.

To stop authoritarian encroachment, communities are organizing - and winning - against the forces that threaten our immigrant neighbors and all of our democratic rights and freedoms.

This training will build on your skills to develop a plan to identify and organize against the ways the mass deportation machine is threatening your community. Whether you are organizing in cities, suburban neighborhoods, or rural areas, this training will give you actionable next steps to identify goals and create an organizing plan to get ICE in all its forms out of our communities.

Grab some friends and join us tomorrow night!

REGISTER HERE

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Miller knows that purging tens of millions of people is a massive logistical task, requiring what he excitedly said would be an effort “greater than any national infrastructure project” in American history. A major part of that “infrastructure project” is a massive expansion of detention capacity. And over the last year ICE has been quietly building up this expansion.

In the same funding bill where the Administration and their allies in Congress cut healthcare and food assistance to families, they gave ICE a $45 billion slush fund to expand detention infrastructure. A leaked ICE memo detailed a plan to have 125 detention facilities by the end of the year with the goal of more than doubling the number of our neighbors ICE has the capacity to detain at one time to more than 100 thousand. According to the American Immigration Council, in just over a year, the detention population has surged from 40,000 to over 73,000, with a final target of 108,000 beds.

The shift toward massive, government-owned “mega-camps” signals a more permanent infrastructure that has disturbing long term implications. Once beds are built there will be a powerful incentive to keep them filled. The American Immigration Council found a 2,450% increase in the number of people with no criminal record being held in ICE detention with the vast majority of those being detained having no criminal record. Making clear that the goal was never about “public safety,” but the mass warehousing of perceived political or social “others.”

As more of our neighbors are being rounded up by ICE, they are spending more time detained in horrific conditions that can be deadly. Denial of basic medical treatment, sexual abuse, overcrowding, and even the lack of food have been regularly documented and reported throughout the hundreds of facilities spread across the country. So far in Trump’s second term 46 people have died while in ICE custody or detention facilities. 2025 was the deadliest year in decades with three times as many deaths as the year prior. Many of the deaths have preventable solutions and are likely an undercount of the conditions that caused later deaths. 14 people have died in the first three months of this year, or an average of about a death every six days in ICE custody, setting a disturbing pattern to be the most deadly year.

One way ICE is looking to rapidly expand their detention capacity is buying up old warehouses. The Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons said last year that he wanted to see a deportation process “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.” And now ICE is looking to combine the mass round up of our neighbors with new regional warehouse acquisitions to make Lyons’ twisted fantasy a reality. According to data compiled by Project Salt Box, over the first three months of this year, ICE purchased 10 warehouses and sought to acquire dozens more.

But in the latest example of the power of organizing, popular pushback across the country has forced the Administration to put purchases on hold for the time being. Neighbors organizing neighbors to push back on the warehouse purchases and the expansion of the mass deportation machine in their back yard is working.

We have a brand new training next Wednesday evening April 15, 6:00 PM CT / 7PM ET – ICE Out Everywhere: Stop the mass deportation machine in your community – that will dig into organizing models that are working, to help your community challenge the massive infrastructure expansion of the deportation machine, from detention centers to surveillance to 287g agreements.

REGISTER HERE

Recent reporting from the Colorado Times Recorder documented 170 unofficial detention sites around the country, called “hold rooms,” and the 140,000 detainees that were sent to one of these sites in the first 10 months of last year, revealing the vast and quiet expansion of the detention capacity of ICE. The expansive acquisitions of office space reported by Wired early this year may indicate an even greater expanse of “hold rooms.” Moreover, Miller is still leading the effort and will help new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin spend billions of tax dollars to detain our neighbors.

The threat isn’t just to our immigrant neighbors, family and friends. The investment in permanent detention infrastructure explicitly designed to hold those the Administration deems insufficiently American in mass, is a threat to all working families. Protecting our neighborhoods from the chaos and cruelty of the mass deportation machine is about more than just immigration policy, it’s about defending the core principles of a free, democratic society.

Your community mobilizing - neighbors protecting neighbors - has worked to drive back ICE enforcement, and now our organizing networks must take on the other powerful parts of the mass deportation machine. This training will help you and your community defense network assess what’s happening in your community, build a plan with your neighbors, and act to free your community from detention camps, 287(g) agreements, ICE at polls, and ICE surveillance. Whether you are organizing in cities, suburban neighborhoods, or rural areas, this training will give you actionable next steps to identify your goals and create an organizing plan to get ICE in all its forms out of our communities.

Register for ICE OUT Training

States at the Core is a small crew of organizers working with local folks across the country. Our mission is pretty simple. Help everyday people fight authoritarianism; help people fight for their freedoms. You probably know us through our training programs, but this is only a small part of what we do. Everything we offer - whether training or supporting people on the ground - is free.

We raise funds for this tremendous work from foundations and generous individual donors. We do as much as we can on a small budget. Compared to authoritarian groups, our resources are minuscule. Despite that, we - with you as our partner - are collectively putting up a valiant fight against advancing authoritarianism!

Support STAC

We are hosting a very special training on Monday night! A training for all of you that are planning or thinking about attending an action sometime soon. Or just those of you who wonder how can I do this myself? A sharp creative action can undermine fear and lies, throw the opposition off its game, protect vulnerable people from harm, make confronting bigots fun, AND tell an important story, all at the same time.

The best part? Just about anybody can pull one off with a good idea, planning, and a few friends. Join us for this 75-minute training on how to build and amplify a great action, or just be a stellar participant. Bring your creative thinking cap and some snacks, this one is going to be fun, fun, fun. Register here!