Not in Our Name: Confronting the War on Immigrants

Remarks as prepared for Solidarity Against ICE Protest
Baltimore MD
March 1st 2025 

Friends  and comrades,

We are here because the war on immigrants is a war on all of us. ICE raids, deportations, family separations—none of this started with Trump, and none of it will end with whoever the next democratic president is.In Maryland, whether it’s a Republican like Larry Hogan or a Democrat like Wes Moore, immigrants are still not safe. The governor’s mansion changes hands, but the policies don’t.

Peter Camejo, a three-time Green Party candidate for governor of California, told us decades ago: The two-party system is a dead end. They don’t work for us. They work for the ruling class. And today, as they send police into our neighborhoods, as they fund ICE to hunt our families, as they line up to approve trillion-dollar military budgets while crying fake tears for the people they put in cages—we see the truth as clearly as ever. Imperialism, capitalism and white supremacy are bipartisan values.

Both parties tell us to fear immigrants. But demonizing them isn’t just their rhetoric—it’s their business model. It’s policy. It’s history. And it’s happening right now. Tom Homan—Trump’s brutal Border Czar? He got his start under Obama. Here in Maryland, Wes Moore and the Democrats still allow local police to collaborate with ICE.

Trump and the Republicans don’t just enforce these policies—they revel in them.

They brag about separating families, laugh about children in cages, and make cruelty their brand. They tell us plainly: their vision is white nationalism, where immigrants live in fear, and Black and Brown communities are treated as enemies of the state.

That is what we are up against. And if we don’t fight them now, they will not stop at the border.

And yet, where are the Maryland Democrats? Where is Wes Moore? He spotlights immigrants in campaign ads but won’t lift a finger when it matters—more afraid of bad polling than of real injustice.  They throw up their hands and say, ‘It’s complicated.’ But nothing is complicated about human dignity.

So how do we defend human dignity? The Democrats say stopping Trump is the answer. But we know better. Stopping Trump is not enough.

This campaign isn’t just about fighting Trump. It must also be about  breaking the cycle of cowardice and complicity that defines the Democratic Party. It’s about creating real sanctuary, where no human being is illegal, where no child wonders if their parents will be there when they come home from school, where ICE has no power, and where we confront oppression at its root.

Both parties tell us to fear immigrants. But what they really fear is solidarity—because when workers unite, we don’t just resist—we win

So today we say No more deportations. No more raids. No more silence.

Not in our name. Not in our state. Not in our world.

We know stopping the attacks on immigrants isn’t enough.

Elections won’t save us.

But they can be a weapon in the hands of the people. They can be a tool to bring power to the communities that need it most.

So we fight on every front. We organize in the streets. We protect each other when the state comes knocking. And yes, we fight for political power—not to reform their system, but to tear down the walls, open the borders, and build a new world where no one is disposable.

A world where solidarity is our defense. A world where courage replaces cowardice. A world where we no longer beg for change—we take it.

The time for fear is over. The time for waiting is over. The time to fight is NOW.