The video below is hilarious. Right wing trump loving maga Dave Rubin gets destroyed with facts and figures from podcaster Parkergetajob. While Rubin tries to spout maga talking points and fox news misinformation. Hugs
It means we have to show up. Not only to vote, but to phone bank, write postcards, talk up the candidates every chance we get wherever we are, and anything else we can do. It’s how they did it in Hungary; people showed up, which extended the candidate’s reach. Thanks to Wonkette’s Evan Hurst for the link.
Starting early in the morning on the second Saturday of May, first hundreds and then thousands of people gathered in the square in front of Hungary’s majestic Parliament building to celebrate the start of a new political era. This was the square where tens of thousands gathered in 1956 and 1989 to demand an end to the Soviet occupation and in 2006 to protest a discredited government. It was the square on which Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s regime imposed a major redesign more than a decade ago — with traffic rerouted away, a large reflecting pool and raised beds installed, narrow pathways laid down — apparently to ensure that no such mass gathering could take place again. Today it was the square where Peter Magyar, a former Orban loyalist, would be sworn in, promising a rebirth of democracy and liberty after 16 years of autocratic control.
Squeezing into the available spaces and gradually filling up nearby cafes and streets, the crowd absorbed people of all ages: young people who didn’t remember a time before Orban and who had voted in unprecedented numbers; aging intellectuals who didn’t think they’d ever celebrate their country again; multigenerational families who had arrived by bus after seeing Magyar in their hometowns and villages. During his campaign, Magyar had traveled to an estimated 700 locations, turning many of them into “Tisza islands” — outposts of support for his party. By the end, Magyar was holding five or more rallies a day.
It had looked like an impossible quest. Orban and his cronies dominated the media, persecuted and smeared opposition politicians and changed election laws to benefit his party, Fidesz. Orban had seemed to achieve what the Hungarian sociologist and political theorist Balint Magyar (no relation) calls “autocratic breakthrough” — the point after which it’s impossible to unseat an autocrat using elections. Illiberal politicians from other countries made pilgrimages to Hungary to learn from Orban; CPAC, the gathering for American national conservatives, started staging an annual convention there; and Vice President JD Vance visited Budapest in advance of the election, in a show of support for Orban. And yet Hungarians handed Tisza not just a victory but a constitutional majority, enough power to reverse Orban’s changes to Hungarian laws and institutions. The triumph was stunning — unique in our era of democratic backsliding — and it holds clear lessons for the United States.
One obvious lesson of Peter Magyar’s success lies in the scale, reach and relentlessness of his organizing network. “They had 2,000 Tisza islands with between 30,000 and 50,000 volunteers,” Balint Magyar told me, in evident awe. “Just in their call centers, they had 3,000 to 4,000 people in the last week of the campaign.” We talked two days before the swearing-in ceremony, at his office in the spectacular but largely empty building of Central European University. In 2018, Orban’s government forced most of the university’s operations into exile amid an antisemitic scare campaign focused on the Hungarian American philanthropist George Soros, the C.E.U.’s founder and principal funder. Some of Orban’s many other scare campaigns targeted migrants, “the Brussels elites” and L.G.B.T.Q. people. During the latest election campaign, billboards and A.I.-generated social media posts warned Hungarians they were in danger of being overtaken by Ukraine and only Orban could protect them. It should have seemed absurd — it was absurd — but outlandish xenophobic and antisemitic propaganda had served Orban well for years. It didn’t work against Peter Magyar — probably because so many Hungarians got to see him in person, many of them repeatedly. This is another lesson of his success: Old-fashioned in-person politics can be a powerful antidote to media fearmongering.
In his inaugural speech to Parliament, broadcast on giant screens set up around the square, Peter Magyar said that voters had handed him a mandate “not just to change the government, but to change the system. To start over.”
Magyar enumerated the ways in which Orban had damaged Hungary: a stalled economy in which a third of the population lives in poverty, inadequate health care, low-quality schools, child welfare institutions plagued by abuse, an atmosphere of hatred and fear. Orban’s regime had “stolen from the common good of the Hungarian nation — from the pockets of the Hungarian people, and from the tables of Hungarian children and the elderly,” Magyar said, “an estimated 20 trillion Hungarian forints,” or some $65 billion, over the last decade and a half.
Previous opposition politicians had described Orban’s regime as “corrupt,” a relatively mild term suggesting some aberration from the government’s intended function. Peter Magyar made no such accommodation. Borrowing a term coined by Balint Magyar, he has called it a mafia state — a fundamentally criminal enterprise. Third lesson: Don’t mince words.
Instead of shrinking away from direct confrontation, he fortified himself against it. By getting elected to the European Parliament, in 2024, he secured immunity from prosecution in Hungary. When rumors circulated of an intimate video that would be used to blackmail him, he went on the offensive, accusing Orban of using “Russian-style kompromat” (no video was released). Knowing that he would probably be blocked from registering a new political party, he took over one that had become dormant. Even more important, instead of trying to build coalitions among other parties, he focused on conscripting as many actual people as possible, from across the political spectrum, ultimately building a giant organization capable of taking down Orban’s political monopoly.
One could say — and some have — that Magyar won at least in part because he was a former insider of Orban’s Fidesz party. But my interlocutors in Hungary emphasized that Magyar’s credibility lay in the fact that he was not a member of the old opposition, whose policies had led to the discontent that made Orban’s rise possible and whose timidity had helped perpetuate Orban’s power. That’s a lesson, too: The person best positioned to break the power of Donald Trump would not be an anti-Trump Republican but an outsider to the Democratic establishment, someone who can credibly claim that Trump didn’t happen on his watch — a Graham Platner rather than a Thomas Massie.
For all his tireless work over the last two years, Magyar did not create his political machine from scratch. Like Zohran Mamdani, Magyar excelled at converting potential supporters into campaign volunteers. An existing news distribution service provided an initial skeleton of the organizing network. A panoply of grass-roots protest movements joined, too. On the day of Magyar’s inauguration, a parallel, smaller commemoration organized by the city of Budapest celebrated those organizations. One by one, people took the microphone to give a short speech about their cause and their part in the electoral victory: teachers who had organized against a unified state-dictated curriculum; a young man who spoke up against abuses in the child care system; a high school student persecuted for reciting an anti-Orban poem; organizers of Budapest’s L.G.B.T.Q. Pride celebration. The speakers stayed onstage, gradually forming a crowd of the kind — the many kinds — of ordinary Hungarians who had ended the Orban era.
That’s a fifth lesson: Grass-roots organizations that have little or no connection to electoral politics — in the United States, that might be the networks formed by the No Kings rallies, ICE-resistance groups and so on — can matter as much as or more than those already focused on winning votes.
Another lesson lies in the issues that motivated Magyar’s voters. Hungary’s economy is a mess, but post-election polling by Median, an organization that had predicted election results with uncanny accuracy, shows that voters saw corruption as the most important issue by far. Asked why they thought Orban had lost, 49 percent cited corruption, and only 18 percent thought it was the “worsening economic situation, rising cost of living.” The next three reasons cited were “lies” (15 percent); “fearmongering, war rhetoric” (11 percent); and “people got fed up” (10 percent). In other words, Hungarians seemed to see the damage that Orbanism had done to the nation as more important than any harm they felt they had suffered as individuals. They were united by a sense of moral outrage — “value choices,” as one person close to the incoming government described it to me.
Polls have consistently shown that even Fidesz voters generally want Hungary to stay in the European Union. Some surely just want the ease of travel and residency, but others probably have in mind the loftier ideals of the E.U., such as the rule of law, human rights and the essential purpose of the E.U., which is peace.
Hungary is one of the poorer countries in the union, and in the early years of his regime, Orban was able to use E.U. membership to secure funding, and thereby power, even as he railed against the Brussels bureaucracy. But in 2022, the European Union started withholding funding, citing corruption. And in 2024, after Hungary ignored a European Court of Justice ruling that compelled it to process asylum applications, the court ordered Hungary to pay 200 million euros and imposed a daily fine of 1 million euros. (When Orban refused to pay, Brussels deducted the money from E.U. funds earmarked for Hungary.) These actions didn’t just hurt the Hungarian economy — they also allowed Magyar to draw a causal connection between Orban’s policies and the well-being of ordinary voters. One of his major campaign promises was to unlock E.U. funding.
Hungary joined the European Union in 2004. The E.U. flag — 12 gold stars on a blue background — adorned the facade of the Hungarian Parliament building alongside the nation’s red, white and green standard. But Orban’s politics, like the politics of most autocrats, was the politics of grievance. Under his regime, the E.U. flag was removed and replaced with the flag of the Szekelys, a Hungarian minority that found itself living in Romania when World War I’s victors redrew the region’s borders. Orban’s symbolic gesture helped fan resentment against the E.U. and what he claimed were a new generation of attacks on Hungarian sovereignty.
Peter Magyar scheduled his inauguration for Europe Day — the 76th anniversary of the declaration that created the road map for a united continent. Before he was sworn in, the European flag was raised again. But the Szekely flag remained, signaling that Magyar seeks to represent all Hungarian citizens, including those who supported Orban. In some U.S. coverage, Magyar has been labeled centrist or right-of-center. What his politics actually are — and this is another lesson of his victory — is pluralist. (snip-MORE)
It’s horrifying that these Jewish settlers who want to eradicate entirely the Muslim population. One woman described Islam as a cancer and wants the Islamists killed or reeducated. Muslims who own businesses can’t even open their shops. But there is a small minority trying to protect the arabs. Hugs
Yet the tRump administration trashed the government’s stance of fighting right wing violence or right wing extremist violent groups. It started with the republicans forcing Obama to remove a government study on right wing extremists. Now the current DOJ and FBI have removed all mention of right wing violence or violent actions instead claiming the violence is all being done and caused by Antifa. The government wants to make the public believe that the people who are against fascism are the real extremist threat to the public. Antifa is antifascism / antifascist. It has no headquarts or central organization it is just people who since the 1930s have pushed back against fascism and fascists. The tRump white supremacists want the public to believe violent groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, Nazi groups, the 3 percenters, and other militia groups that joined in the insurrection riot on Jan 6th and are extreme white supremacists. The current people in charge love the way they can steal the money from the treasury and take away people’s rights, so they want to keep the hate groups that support them to be the good guys and anyone who tries to stop the destruction of democracy they hope to make the bad people. Hugs
Disclaimer: WWFU typically redacts the imagery seen in this zine with an iron front or an X, and encourages others to do the same. This zine also contains slurs that we typically redact. For the sake of eduction and proper recognition, the following content is un-redacted.
A Reference Guide For Recognizing Far Right Groups, Symbols and Dog Whistles
Introduction
As of spring 2026, this zine serves as a reference guide to far-right symbols, dogwhistles, and groups, helping you recognize and understand them. The list focuses on the most active groups and the most commonly used phrases and symbols at this time.
Not all neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups openly brand themselves with swastikas or SS bolts. Recognizing their dogwhistles is essential to accurately identifying them as the community threats they are. Some groups and individuals deliberately project a public facing image of “patriotism” or opposition to “foreign wars” to appear more mainstream, while privately holding the same beliefs as more openly neo-Nazi organizations. Because some symbols are not exclusive to neo-Nazis, fascists, or white supremacists, it’s important to look for additional context clues and patterns of use.
Dogwhistles are coded messages communicated through words or phrases understood by a specific in-group, but not by outside observers. Neo-Nazis and white supremacists use dogwhistles to signal to one another while maintaining plausible deniability.
Phrases / Numbers
131: Anti Communist Action (ACA), the numbers referring to the letters of the alphabet.
Blue Lives Matter/All Lives Matter: These phrases are nothing more than a response to people saying “Black Live Matter” and as way to silence Black voices. Cops can always choose to take off their uniform, while Black people cannot take off their skin or escape the discrimination that comes with it. No one would go to an event to save the rainforests and say that all forests matter. If all lives matter, as racists love to say, then Black lives have to matter. All lives can’t matter until Black lives matter because they are the ones being targeted by police, racist attacks, and everyday discrimination.
TDOTR: The Day of the Rope, a fictional day from the book The Turner Diaries in which race traitors (women who marry non-white men, the press, politicians, LGBTQ people and more) are hanged from lampposts.
6MWE: “Six Million Wasn’t Enough” referring to the number of Jewish people murdered during the holocaust.
The Great Replacement Theory: White supremacist conspiracy theory that argues democratic and government officials are intentionally facilitating non-white immigration to replace the white population for political purposes. Similar phrases include “white genocide.”
It’s okay to be white: While no one is saying it’s not okay to be white, this phrase creates perceived victimhood and is a stepping stone to great replacement.
WPWW: White Pride World Wide
GTKRWN: Gas the Kikes, Race War Now
RAHOWA: Racial Holy War
RWDS: Right Wing Death Squad
Blood and Soil: A reference to race and nationality from Nazi Germany
14: A reference to the 14 words “we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” coined by David Lane.
88: 8 Represents the 8th letter of the alphabet, HH or “Heil Hitler.” Variations include H8 and 83 “Heil Christ.” You will often see the numbers 14 and 88 together (1488 or 14/88).
WP: White Power. Also sometimes signified by an “okay” hand gesture.
Reclaim America: White supremacist slogan advocating for the “reclaiming” of America from immigrants (referencing the racist Great Replacement conspiracy theory).
We’ll Have Our Home Again: Popular phrase used by neo-nazis and white supremacists based on a song of the same title and similar to “reclaim America.”
Groups / Orgs
Patriot Front: A white nationalist group mostly focused on using patriotic imagery and rhetoric to spread propaganda and recruit. Founded by Thomas Rousseau, the group broke off from Vanguard America in 2017 after the deadly Charlottesville rally in Virginia. They care primarily about public image. Their style involves patriotic designs including red white and blue, fasces, khaki pants, and white masks with matching shirts, shields, the Confederate flag, the Betsy Ross flag, and the US flag. Despite their efforts to be palatable to a wider audience, outside of public view they espouse anti-semetic, pro-white and pro-nazi views. Patriot Front is currently one of the largest white nationalist groups in the US.
Active Clubs: Active Clubs are white supremacist fight clubs widespread across the US and throughout parts of Europe. They use the guise of fitness and training to try recruiting mostly younger white men into their clubs. Often members will march with other larger neo-nazi / white supremacist groups, and all chapters share the same logo of a Celtic Cross with text representative of their region. Many Active Clubs in the US are directly tied to Thomas Rousseau and Patriot Front.
Blood Tribe: Blood Tribe is a neo-nazi group started by former marine Christopher Pohlhaus. They are known for being one of the most outward facing Nazi groups, holding semi-regular marches in cities across the US. They wear matching red and black outfits with black face coverings, and march with matching black and white swastika flags, and will loudly chant white supremacist and nazi slogans. Their goal is to instill a Fourth Reich in the US.
AFN: “Aryan Freedom Network” is a neo-nazi group present widespread across the US. The group has begun functioning as an umbrella organization, bringing in members from other groups like the Ku Klux Klan and outlaw bikers to function under their name. Outside of flyering neighborhoods with nazi propaganda, they operate mostly out of public view. They train often with firearms and make efforts to organize nationally across as many regions as possible.
WLM: “White Lives Matter” is a white supremacist movement with chapters all around America and the globe, who focus their activism on low-risk tactics like stickers, flyers, and banners.
Three Percenters: This movement was created in 2008 with the false claim that only 3% of American forces fought the British in the revolutionary war, and therefore it would take only 3% of the population to overthrow the current US government. They are a far-right militia movement of anti-government extremists focused on gun ownership.
Proud Boys: A group of western chauvinists founded by Gavin McInnes in 2016. Although the Proud Boys aren’t explicitly white supremacist, their emphasis on the “western” values and culture is a thinly veiled substitute for “White” values and culture and is used to deflect accusations of racism. Their ideology can be considered a form of proto-fascism as it contains elements of ultra-nationalism, traditionalism, misogyny, and social Darwinism. Their membership has different levels and members are encouraged to participate in street brawls. Level 1 is to exclaim “I am a proud western chauvinist and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.” Level two is to recite 5 cereal brands while other members perform a “beat in.” Level 3 is to get a tattoo of “PROUD BOY,” and level 4 is to engage in violence for their cause, usually against LGBTQ or antifascists. They use the acronyms POYB (Proud of Your Boy) and FAFO (Fuck Around and Find Out) and can be spotted in black and yellow Fred Perry polo shirts, or other clothes with the black/yellow color combination. They also use the “okay” hand sign on a regular basis.
NOVA: “National Organization for Vital Action” is a white-supremacist organization with the goal of building a “nation within a nation” for whites only. They aim to connect as many neo-nazi and white-supremacist groups and individuals as possible in order to create a broad network of racists in America. Their public actions mostly consist of banner drops and stickers. In private, the group has expressed their willingness to use violence to achieve their end goals of a whites only nation.
GDL: “Goyim Defense League”, founded by Jon Minadeo II, is a network of anti-semetic content creators who focus almost exclusively on anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and hatred. They primarily focus their efforts on online videos and live -streams, but are also active in-person, often flyering neighborhoods doing banner drops, harassing synagogues, and holding marches with swastika flags.
Groypers: “Groypers” are a term for followers of far-right, nazi influencer Nick Fuentes. Less of an organized group, it is a term given to adherents of the anti-immigrant, anti-semetic, and pro-white positions held by Nick Fuentes and pushed into the public. The primary function of Groypers is to push more “traditional conservatives” into a more radical, white supremacist sphere.
The Base: An accelerationist paramilitary nazi group formed by Rinaldo Nazzaro in 2018. They have similar aesthetics to Atomwaffen, but a different logo.
Atomwaffen Division: Also known as the National Socialist Order, Atomwaffen is an accelerationist (accelerating towards a race war in which they hope to overthrow the current government and society and replace it with a fascist order) nazi group responsible for several murders. After numerous arrests and infighting. the group dissolved, only recently attempting to reform in 2025, though failing to gain support. Responsible for popularizing the skull mask within neo-nazi groups, other symbols include the radioactive symbol and flecktarn (a German camo pattern similar to the “peas” pattern from WW2). Although now defunct, their influence remains significant.
Ku Klux Klan: One of the longst running white supremacist organizations. They use the number 311 to represent 3 Ks, which is the 11th letter of the alphabet. Their iconic robes have become so recognizable they may no longer count as a dog whistle. They also use the blood drop cross and variations on the blood drop cross including just the blood drop, and the confederate flag.
Gypsy Jokers: A one percenter motorcycle club with white supremacist sympathies who are known to traffic drugs and engage in low level organized crime and violence. They wear motorcycle gear adorned with nazi symbols and a back patch that says “Gypsy Jokers.” In recent years they have been known to associate with the Proud Boys.
Oathkeepers: Far-right anti-government militia founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes. Oathkeepers played a key role in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. Oathkeepers appeal directly to military and law enforcement personnel, encouraging them to keep their “oath” to defend the public from what they perceive as the new world order, by means of discipline and violence. They’re also associated with three percenters.
Hammerskins: A racist skinhead group, aka boneheads. The feeder group is known as Crew 38 (38 for “Crossed Hammers”). Hammerskins focus mostly on spreading racist music, but they also engage in street fighting and targeted attacks. Hammerskin Nation is considered one of the most violent racist skinhead groups in the US. They use a hand sign of crossed arms with fists to represent the crossed hammers.
WoV: “Wolves of Vinland” is a group with heavy folkish influences that promotes white supremacy and misogyny, stressing Asatru or Paganism, including animal sacrifices and blood rituals in the woods. They have recently been partnering with Patriot Front and Active Clubs to hold fascist combat events. Their headquarters is in VA, but membership is not limited to that area. “Operation Werewolf” has been used as a recruiting tool and feeder group for WoV. They can be spotted with Celtic and Nordic imagery, runes, and wolf pack patches..
Asatru Folk Assembly: A norse pagan organization which advocates for pre-Christian European rituals and beliefs. The organization discourages “race-mixing” and promotes a whites-only vision of America, falsely claiming that white people were in North America first and were wiped out. Members of other neo-nazi groups such as Blood Tribe associate often with them.
764 / No Lives Matter: 764 is an international, predatory network that espouses neo-nazi, satanic, nihilistic, and accelerationist beliefs. It targets and exploits children / young people and encourages them to commit mass acts of violence. Adherents have been responsible for acts such as murder, firebombings, and school shootings.
Tempel ov Blood / 09A: The Order of Nine Angles (09A), and it’s most violent chapter, The Tempel ov Blood (ToB), are satanic neo-Nazi cults that have had a significant influence on far-right accelerationist projects, like the now-defunct Atomwaffen. Suffice to say, 09A and ToB glorify nazism and violence, and are adept at radicalizing (and abusing) teenagers. Symbols include the seven-pt star inside a circle, a downward sort of pitchfork with 333 above it, and “Drill Sgt Grey” – a sinister space alien in a military outfit.
Injekt Division: An accelerationist nazi group that was formed by Coleman Blevins (aka Korb) in 2021. They are organized in decentralized cells, embracing a terror guerrilla ideology that looks to collapse the “System”. Their symbols include a syringe, 1494 and “Pray For Rain”.
NWTI: “The Northwest Territorial Imperative” is a vision of a whites-only homeland in the Pacific NW. Proposed in the ’80s by Richard Butler of the Aryan Nations, it is an idea embraced by a wide variety of white supremacists, including secretive militant nazi groups dedicated to implementing the vision, such as Northwest Front (NF) or the Northwest Pioneer Association (NPA). NWTI is represented by an inverted Cascadian tri-color flag – having vertical stripes, rather than horizontal. Their flag sometimes includes a rune or swastika. Common associated phrases: “Come Home, White Man” and “Ex Gladio Libertas”.
Vinlanders Social Club: Vinlanders Social Club (VSC / Firm 22) is a violent neo-Nazi bonehead gang formed in 2003. It uses Firm 22 as a support crew of men and women; the men being prospects for full VSC membership. VSC / Firm 22 went into decline in the 2010s, but has been attempting to build itself back up through proximity to the active club movement, much like the Hammerskins. Its symbols include a black cross on a green flag, 22, 1422, an eagle holding brass knuckles, a red, white & blue shield patch with a laurel, or just a laurel.
TPUSA: “Turning Point USA” is an organization which targets high schoolers and college students with far-right propaganda, talking points, and literature. Founded by Charlie Kirk, and now led by his widowed wife Erika Kirk, the organization has chapters in schools across the US, and regularly sets up tents on college campuses in order to recruit and create content by means of filming bad-faith political “debates.” With a roster of speakers and frequent events, TPUSA regularly promotes popular anti-trans white nationalist talking points, white Christianity, and racial divisions. Using the public image of more traditional conservatism, they function as a pipeline to more fascist far-right ideologies.
References and Further Reading
For current / past antifascist articles, contact info for sharing tips, and other resources, you can visit:
I receive a couple of weekly emails from Friends Committee on National Legislation. I began working with them back when the US invaded Afghanistan. I’m copy-pasting today’s letter, which includes links for more info, and some even for taking a little action if someone cares to do it.Either way, it’s good to be informed.
After a months-long political standoff over immigration enforcement funding, congressional Republicans continue to push forward a $72 billion proposal, without measures to hold these rogue agencies accountable.
A ruling by the Senate parliamentarian Thursday set back the proposal for now. But we must continue the struggle against a blank check for more lawless, cruel enforcement.
One of the most impactful ways we can push back is by lifting up stories of the toll of these policies on our communities.
On Wednesday, a group of senators held a hearing spotlighting how immigrants brought to the U.S. as children are facing detention and deportation after being promised protections.
Stephanie Villarreal shared a story about her husband Juan, a DACA recipient who has lived in the U.S. for more than 25 years. On Feb. 18, Juan was driving to deliver breast milk to their newborn baby in the neonatal intensive care unit. He never arrived. On his way, Juan was seized by ICE agents as Stephanie listened on the phone helplessly. He has been in detention ever since, separated from his wife, his baby, and his other children.
“He did everything he was asked to,” Stephanie said. “But that didn’t matter.”
We were also moved by the story of Deiver Henao, a nine-year-old boy held in ICE detention.
“I don’t wanna be here anymore,” he said. “I want to be [in school] to be happy … I wish I could leave before the spelling bee.”
Thankfully, Deiver and his family were released after his case received media attention. But many other children like him remain detained.
These stories are not are exceptional: they are far too common. How we treat people like Juan and Deiver is a test of who are as a nation. We all deserve to be treated with dignity, love, and respect. It is up to us, as people of faith and conscience, to speak out against these heartbreaking injustices and demand better from our government.
“Congressional action depends on local, personal stories from the communities they represent,” FCNL’s Anika Forrest explained.“Let’s make sure that Congress can’t look away.”
Elsewhere
War Powers Resolution on Iran barely falls short Public pressure to end war on Iran is moving Congress. Just this week, we saw resolutions to end the war almost pass – falling only one vote short in the House and two votes short in the Senate.
Public opposition to the war is bipartisan and fierce, and growing in Congress. Let’s keep up the momentum and get this over the finish line!
As Trump visits China, cries for cooperation multiply President Trump visited China this week, meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, talking about trade, Taiwan, and other issues. FCNL joined a broad coalition of organizations in calling for a peaceful, cooperative relationship between China and the U.S.As our letter to Congress puts it,
“At a time when so many domestic needs are going unmet, a confrontational posture toward China is costing untold billions.” Every dollar spent on war or preparing for war takes away from the desperate needs we have at home and abroad to build the world we seek.
Members of Congress call on U.S. to stop Ecuador operations The U.S. military is supporting Ecuadorian forces to violently crack down on accused drug traffickers. Twenty members of Congress sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth demanding that the U.S. stop and investigate serious accusations of human rights abuses: “The United States cannot continue to be complicit in abuses abroad. There must be accountability.”
The path to abolishing the Selective Service Plans for automatic draft registration were announced about a month ago, fulfilling the mandate from 2025’s defense bill. Just yesterday, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation which would end the Selective Service entirely.
FCNL’s Priya Moran explained what’s going on and what the future might hold, calling on Congress to “focus on preventing war, instead of maintaining a system designed to force young people to engage in it.” Call for Congress to act!
In peace, Bryan Bowman Social Media and Communications Strategist
A Florida man is facing life felony charges after allegedly brutally assaulting a defenseless 5-year-old boy in an act of hate-fueled child abuse. “This was a brutal and hateful attack on a defenseless child. There is absolutely no excuse for it. We will make sure justice is served and these children get the safety and support they deserve,” Sheriff Grady Judd said.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said that on Sunday, May 3, 33-year-old Andre Brown Jr. from Davenport was arrested for child abuse. According to officials, this charge has been categorized as a life felony because it is considered a hate crime.
During interviews with the children in Browns care, it was revealed that Brown had been physically abusive toward a 5-year-old boy, specifically targeting him because he was “mad at him for being gay.” Brown reportedly told deputies that he abused the child because of his sexual orientation, claiming he would “beat the gay out of him if possible.”
The boy told authorities he was afraid of Brown and did not want to talk much about what happened. He had the worst injuries of the three: marks and bruising on his legs, arms, back, and stomach; a fracture to his right wrist; and a contusion to his forehead. He had marks all over his body consistent with being hit by a belt, the sheriff’s office said.
When deputies attempted to remove Brown from the scene, he pulled away, became loud and began yelling slurs, the sheriff’s office said. He continued yelling and pulling away once placed in handcuffs, according to the release, and also was charged with resisting arrest.
Brown has a lengthy criminal history, including domestic battery strangulation, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, kidnapping with intent to commit a felony, home invasion robbery with a firearm and battery on a law enforcement officer, the release said.
Emma Tenayuca was a labor organizer in Texas who is best known for leading a strike of pecan shellers in 1938. Workers called her “La Pasionaria“ which means “Passionflower.” From a young age, she survived violence and imprisonment in her quest to help workers get better working conditions and higher wages.
Tenayuca was born on December 21, 1916, and I know all of you December birthday people will identify with her plight – born too close to Christmas, she never got ‘birthday’ presents. Her family was Mexican American, and had lived in Texas for many generations. She was raised by grandparents who were interested in politics, and was also influenced by the speakers in the San Antonio town square. She was brought up with pride in her family and their roots, and she was encouraged to be educated and politically active by her family.
Emma Tenayuca in 1939, photographed for a Personality of the Week article in The San Antonio Light
Tenayuca was arrested for the first time at 16, for protesting alongside striking workers from the Finck Cigar Company. She used her bilingual language skills to help people with their problems and worked with many organizations working towards better pay and better conditions for Mexican-Americans.
One of the most common positions for Mexican-American women in the area was in the pecan industry. Pecan shelling for 6-7 cents a pound was difficult work (the meat of the shell must remain intact) for little pay. Additionally, the process filled the factory rooms with a fine dust that contributed towards tuberculosis.
In 1938, the factories cut pay to 3 cents a pound and Tenayuca, who was 21 years old at the time, found herself leading a strike of approximately 12,000 workers. The strike faced violent opposition, as detailed in the article “Remembering Emma Tenayuca:”
When Pecan production ground to a halt, the owners fought back: Tenayuca and hundreds of strikers were gassed and arrested by San Antonio police. Some were beaten as well. With the NWA rallying community support, the strike turned into a city-wide uprising of the poorest and most oppressed people in San Antonio.
Thirty-seven days after the strike began the pecan producers agreed to arbitration. A few weeks later, the workers had won a wage increase to seven or eight cents per pound.
Tenayuca faced opposition as a woman, as a Mexican-American, as a labor organizer, and as a member of the Communist Party (she left the Party in 1946). From Americans Who Tell the Truth:
A quarter of immigration arrests since August were labeled by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as “collateral,” a type of arrest and detention that’s been challenged in court as an end run around civil rights.
Public outrage and lawsuits over the arrests may be tamping down the large-scale sweeps that foster them, but tens of thousands were arrested this way between August and early March.
Immigration arrests are usually based on warrants obtained ahead of time, showing either a removal order from immigration court or evidence of a crime or charge that makes the person subject to deportation.
But collateral arrests can result from street sweeps and raids in which a person is singled out for questioning based on appearance or proximity to someone wanted on a warrant. That person could be taken into custody if agents think they may be subject to deportation and also likely to flee if released.
Labeled for the first time ever, the collateral arrests are reported from August to early March in ICE arrest data obtained by the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by Stateline. In that time there were about 64,000 collateral arrests, a quarter of the 253,000 total arrests by ICE.
About 70% of the collateral arrests were for people with immigration-related crimes or violations alone, compared with 41% for arrests with warrants. Less than 2% of those with collateral arrests were convicted of a violent crime, one-third the rate of other arrests, and only 18% were convicted of any crime, compared with 33% for other arrests.
The collateral arrests contributed to an overall pattern of lower and lower shares of arrests for serious crimes, and more for immigration offenses alone.
Arrests climbed from about 12,000 in January 2025 to more than 40,000 in December, but fell back to 30,000 this February. The share of people with only immigration-related crimes and violations rose to more than half in December and January, the peak months for collateral arrests, and the share of violent criminals fell from 10% to 4% of arrests in that time.
(This chart is interactive. If you can’t see the arrest data here by mousing over states, you can on the page, linked in the title above, & also at the end of this post.)
New policy
ICE announced a new policy in January to issue warrants in real time if agents think an immigrant is deportable and “likely to escape,” though that policy faces a court challenge.
Total arrests and collateral arrests have been falling since December, whether because of the new policy or because of cutbacks in the large-scale street sweeps that tend to produce them.
One factor is public outrage over raids sweeping up noncriminals in places like Minneapolis and Chicago, said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst for the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
“The sort of large operations within big cities, as they were occurring, seems to have subsided somewhat,” Putzel-Kavanaugh said. “After the kind of public outcry following Minneapolis, it seems as though, at least for now, that tactic has kind of been paused.”
The Trump administration’s focus on mass deportation opened the way for more collateral street arrests with less investigation, she added.
“If it’s a more targeted arrest, they would take the time to sort of essentially have an investigation. It’s a pretty resource-intensive way that just would not yield the kind of numbers ICE was being told to produce,” she said.
The new policy was filed in court papers in February as a response to a lawsuit over ICE sweeps in the District of Columbia last year, alleging ICE agents “have flooded the streets of the nation’s capital, indiscriminately arresting without warrants and without probable cause District residents whom the agents perceive to be Latino.”
The case resulted in a preliminary injunction in December requiring a halt to warrantless arrests without establishing probable cause that the person is living here illegally and is a flight risk.
One plaintiff in the class-action case, José Escobar Molina, said in the lawsuit that agents in two cars pulled up to him as he approached his work truck on Aug. 21, grabbing him by the arms and legs and handcuffing him without asking any questions. Escobar, 47, said in the court papers that he’s lived in the district for 25 years and has had temporary protected status as a Salvadoran native the whole time. He was held overnight in Virginia before being released.
Other lawsuits are also challenging collateral arrests, such as an incident in Idaho in which agents with warrants for five people ended up arresting 105 immigrants at a Latino community event in October.
“I have a lot of fear that this will happen to me again. I was essentially kidnapped based only on the color of my skin. That really weighs on me,” said Yoshi Cuenca Villamar, one of the citizens and a North Carolina native, in a statement announcing the lawsuit. He said he was doing landscaping work Nov. 15 when agents pushed him to the ground and handcuffed him, then held him in a car before releasing him.
One Illinois case that started in the first Trump administration challenged warrantless arrests and traffic stops used as a pretext for immigration arrests. A 2022 settlement required ICE to document “reasonable suspicion” of illegal status before arresting somebody. The case continues since a judge found in February that the new ICE policy of issuing warrants in real time after a detention violates the consent decree.
Shares of collateral arrests
In the months since August where collateral arrests are now labeled, the District of Columbia and Illinois stand out with high shares of collateral arrests. More than half the arrests in the district were collateral, as were 41% of those in Illinois. There were eight states in which at least 30% of arrests were collateral: Alabama, Maryland, West Virginia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine and Minnesota.
West Virginia, where there was a “statewide surge” of immigration enforcement in January with state and local cooperation, stands out for its high rate of total arrests as well as a large share of collateral arrests.
For the eight months between August and early March, West Virginia had 1,831 arrests, or 1 in 10 of the state’s noncitizen population as of 2024, the latest data available. That’s by far the largest share in the country, followed by 7% in Wyoming (where truck drivers were targeted for immigration arrests in February) and 4% in Mississippi.
West Virginia Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey, in a statement, cited the cooperation of state and local agencies with ICE through the 287(g) program that assists with immigration enforcement. He praised ICE, saying “they have removed dangerous illegal immigrants from our communities and made our state safer for families and law-abiding citizens.”
Few of those arrested in the surge were violent criminals, however. More than half of those arrested during the surge were collateral arrests, and only 1% — nine immigrants — had a violent crime conviction, according to the Stateline analysis. More than three-quarters, about 500 people, had only an immigration-related violation or crime.
Judges didn’t always agree that collateral arrests and detentions in the West Virginia surge were legal under the U.S. Constitution. U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin, a Clinton appointee, ordered two detainees released in January. He noted that “similar seizures and detentions are occurring frequently across the country” without any evidence they’re necessary as required by the Constitution.
This guest is an immigration attorney with expertise in ICE tactics and in ICE detention. She dispels the misunderstanding and the myths created by the tRump administartion. These detentions are civil detentions not criminal and entering the country with out inspection is a class B misdemeanor. Another thing she mentions is the ever-increasing costs for detention which is currently $200 a day per detainee and there are over 70 thousand detainees. She gives a lot of other useful to know information including the brutality in the detention centers. For example they are taking detainees out in the Everglades and forcing them to stand with hands shackled in the hot sun being eaten by misketoes and bugs. They are putting people in “hot boxes” and leaving them there in the hot Florida sun with no water or medical treatment when they are let out. She describes many more examples. Hugs
Katie Blankenship, an immigration attorney from Sanctuary of the South, a grassroots legal services organization that provides critical, affordable legal defense to immigrant families affected by detention, deportation, and abuse, joins Sam to discuss abuses at the Alligator Alcatraz ICE detention center in Florida. To find resources or ways to help those targeted by ICE in your area you can visit Freedom for immigrants, American Immigration Council or visit the ACLU to find your local affiliate.
Scottie's Playtime 