This summer has been about detention and deportation as much as it’s been about resistance. As the Trump administration is encouraging immigrants across the country to “self-deport,” ICE arrests skyrocketed across the country. Perhaps the most emblematic of this has been Los Angeles where officers arrested 1,618 immigrants between June 6 and June 22 alone amid National Guard deployment in LA and across Southern California in early June.

Mass arrests of farmworkers leading to death, raids in neighborhoods, and family arrests and separations at courthouses are causing fear in immigrant communities. The raids have hurt families and children the most. Detention, deportation, and raids are causing emotional trauma for both immigrant children and U.S.-born children in mixed families. Children are being left alone after their parents are arrested, are being detained with their families in hotels and newly reopened family detention facilities, and deported including U.S. citizen children and children as young as 6 years old.

Congress passed the big, horrible spending bill in early July which will provide a huge amount of money — $146.3 billion — for raids, detention, and deportation. This is more money than has ever been spent on this before. The government will spend $45 billion to build new detention facilities including for families which will expand the already massive detention system. Recent reports reveal plans to double detention capacity by the end of the year.  Recent reports reveal plans to double detention capacity by the end of the year including soft sided tent concentration camps like the so-called Alligator Alcatraz in Florida.

Yet, communities are developing more systems for response in communities and outside holding facilities that may be impacting the effectiveness of ICE arrests. Community response networks are bringing hope and clear means of protecting our neighbors while protests like Tsuru’s action to stop a proposed detention center bring hope and spark courage to stand up to increasingly violent federal targeting. Elected leaders are following the community lead such as the Texas legislators who resisted efforts to redistrict in order to continue using the state as a testing ground for the most draconian immigration polices.

Tsuru for Solidarity is a volunteer-run non-violent direct action group of Japanese Americans dedicated to closing the camps.