From coast to coast, teams of persons are bobbing up to give protection to participants in their communities as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol brokers threaten them with violent enforcement.
In Portland, Oregon, group volunteers have delivered meals bins to migrant households scared to go away their properties. In Portland, Maine, just about 1000 other people grew to become out for a digital American Civil Liberties Union “Know Your Rights” coaching match. And in Minneapolis and St. Paul, volunteers have shaped networks to provide caution with whistles and contact apps when ICE is prowling the streets.
As any person who for 20 years has studied nonviolent actions in conflict zones, I see many parallels between those actions out of the country and the ones which have been arranged just lately around the U.S. The communities I’ve studied – from Colombia to the Philippines to Syria – train classes about surviving in the middle of threat that American citizens had been finding instinctively during the last yr.
Those reviews display that coverage in their neighbors is conceivable. Violence can deliver emotions of worry, isolation and powerlessness, however harmony can triumph over worry, and nonviolence and self-discipline are key for denying the tough pretexts for additional escalation and hurt.
However on the similar time, the deaths of American citizens Renée Excellent and Alex Pretti, who had been a part of a nonviolent motion and had been killed by means of immigration brokers in Minneapolis, make it transparent that appearing to give protection to neighbors calls for braveness, and possibilities don’t seem to be all the time positive.
Listed below are the core classes I’ve realized from the folk and the teams I’ve researched.
Individuals of the general public take movies and blow whistles at what they believe are Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers in unmarked vehicles using by means of in South Portland, Maine, on Jan. 23, 2026.
Joseph Prezioso/AFP by the use of Getty Pictures
1. Organizing is step one
Neighborhood organizing is the act of establishing social ties, surroundings decision-making procedures, sharing data and coordinating actions.
In Colombia, I discovered that it used to be the extra arranged communities with colourful native councils that had been higher in a position to give protection to themselves by means of keeping off or opposing violence when stuck between closely armed insurgents, paramilitaries and state forces. Those organizations supply reassurance to the extra hesitant and inspire extra other people to enroll in in.
The usa has a robust civic tradition and historical past of organizing, relationship again to the Civil Rights Motion and lengthy sooner than, and Minnesota is understood for its sturdy social brotherly love. It’s no marvel such a lot of Minnesotans, in addition to Chicagoans, Angelenos and different American citizens have arranged to assist their neighbors and press for justice.
Make no mistake, the act of organizing itself is strong. I discovered that insights from the fighters of armed conflicts make clear this. A former rebel I interviewed in Colombia quoted to me an adage of Aristotle and Shakespeare: “A single swallow doesn’t make a summer” – that means there’s protection in numbers.
A mass of other people by itself can shift the calculus and behaviour of the ones with guns and deter them. It’s why there are actually many visuals of ICE brokers leaving the scene when outnumbered by means of group participants.
2. Adopting nonviolent methods
Organizing additionally allows communities to undertake nonviolent strategies for duty and coverage with out ratcheting up battle.
Those methods are much less political or partisan, since there’s in most cases consensus round selling protection, which makes it tricky for political figures to oppose. Whilst fresh polling on presidential approval and immigration coverage nonetheless presentations a partisan break up, ICE is extensively unpopular, and a big majority opposes its competitive techniques.
American citizens have taken up many of those nonviolent methods. They’ve established early caution networks simply as communities did within the Democratic Republic of Congo to protect towards assaults by means of the Lord’s Resistance Military rebellion workforce.
Whether or not with whistles or WhatsApp, such networks of protectors are sharing data with every different to spot threats and are available to one another’s support.
A Fb publish from the ACLU of Maine notes the massive turnout for a ‘Know Your Rights’ coaching match on Jan. 23, 2026.
Fb
3. Putting in place secure zones
Communities in puts such because the Philippines have additionally arrange secure zones or “peace zones” to publicize their need to stay violence clear of their citizens. That is similar to the declaration of “sanctuary cities” within the U.S. for the problem of immigration.
Communities might also practice other sorts of drive on armed aggressors. Whilst protest is essentially the most visual manner, discussion may be conceivable. Force can take the type of persuasion in addition to shaming to make trigger-happy brokers think carefully about what they’re doing and use restraint.
Within the U.S., protectors have proven nice creativity in terms of exerting drive. Grandmas and clergymen are visual symbols who’ve affect via their ethical and non secular standing. Using humor and farce – equivalent to protesters wearing frog fits – can lend a hand to de-escalate tensions.
It won’t all the time appear adore it, however reputations and considerations about duty topic, even to bullies. That’s why ICE brokers don’t need to be observed enacting violence. Therefore the face mask, the snatching of protesters’ telephones and the deceptive statements by means of officers about violent encounters.
A big workforce of protesters, together with clergy, collect at Minneapolis-St. Paul Global Airport in frigid temperatures on Jan. 23, 2026, to show towards immigration enforcement operations within the Dual Towns metro space.
Elizabeth Flores/The Minnesota Celebrity Tribune by the use of Getty Pictures
4. Discovering the details
Within the “fog of war,” the tough would possibly attempt to twist the details and deceive and stigmatize communities and folks to create pretexts for even higher makes use of of power.
In Colombia and Afghanistan, armed teams falsely accused folks of being enemy collaborators. Communities addressed this by means of carrying out their very own investigations of the ones accused, and then group elders may vouch for them.
Within the U.S., American citizens are recording cell phone movies and amassing group proof to counter respectable lies, equivalent to accusations of home terrorism – and for long term efforts to pursue duty.
Status up for others
After all, what’s referred to as “accompaniment” may be essential.
As an example, world humanitarian workforce and volunteers have long gone to communities in puts equivalent to Colombia, Guatemala and South Sudan to let armed teams know that outsiders are gazing them and appearing as unarmed bodyguards for human rights defenders.
Within the U.S., volunteers, voters and spiritual leaders have used their much less prone social statuses to get up for noncitizens who’re below danger, even positioning themselves between immigration brokers and those that could also be in danger. Folks from across the nation have additionally despatched messages and traveled in unity to the towns and states the place operations had been performed.
But that may have penalties even for many who consider themselves much less more likely to be attacked. An ICE agent on Sept. 19, 2025, shot a priest within the head with a pepper ball whilst he used to be protesting at an ICE detention facility in Chicago.
Performing to give protection to oneself, people and communities can contain dangers. However civil society has energy, too, and plenty of communities in conflict zones in different international locations have outlasted their oppressors. American citizens are finding out and doing what civilians in conflict zones international have executed for many years, whilst additionally writing their very own tale within the procedure.
