Providence General Assembly calls on McKee to take executive action against ICE

"There’s no room for those who have been left behind in McKee & Smiley’s temporary FIFA Disneyland. We don’t want a city that refuses to help those who need it & instead represses those same people."

The Providence General Assembly (PGA), a local grassroots organizing space, held a press conference yesterday outside (and inside) the Rhode Island State House, calling on Governor Daniel McKee to take a stand against ICE (United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and in support of Rhode Island residents.

Note: As the World Cup is commencing this Friday, June 12, the PGA will be marching throughout downtown to bring awareness to the continued harassment of unhoused people at 8 pm this Friday at Burnside Park.

Speakers included representatives of the Providence General Assembly, the Providence Organization of Workers and Renters (POWR), Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), Representative David Morales (Democrat, District 7, Providence), and concerned residents from across the state.

Here’s the video:

From the PGA press release:

“Over the past year, as we have seen ICE rip countless Rhode Island residents from their families and terrorize communities across the United States, members of the Providence General Assembly have taken action. We have organized to offer direct support to families, produced a zine for families on how to prepare and how to navigate the system, and successfully pressured city leadership in Providence to prohibit ICE from using city property.

“We support the bills before the Rhode Island General Assembly that seek to curtail ICE impunity and that prohibit the use of state resources for civil immigration enforcement. But most of those bills remain stuck in committee as the legislative session comes to a close. Governor McKee can take meaningful executive action now, as other governors—like Healey in Massachusetts and Spanberger in Virginia—have done. We call on him to do so immediately.”

PGA demands:

• No ICE on State Property!

  • We demand that McKee issue an executive order prohibiting ICE and other “immigration enforcement” agents from using any State-owned property as a staging area, processing location, operations base, or other support for immigration enforcement. State agencies should identify all State-owned properties, post signage (as the City of Providence has done), and create a plan to enforce this prohibition.

• No 287(g) Agreements or Other State Collaboration with ICE!

  • We demand that McKee take immediate action to prevent any State agency from collaborating with federal immigration enforcement through a 287(g) agreement or any similar arrangement.

  • We also call on the General Assembly to take action by passing H8347 and S3116, which would bar any State or local agency from entering into these agreements.

  • We also demand that State law enforcement and Department of Corrections personnel be prohibited from facilitating, formally or informally, federal immigration enforcement. State agencies need to ensure Rhode Island residents have safe access to the courts and other state services.

• Protect Our Schools, Hospitals, and Other Public-Serving Institutions!

  • We demand that McKee direct relevant executive agencies to work with both public and private public-serving institutions to ensure they have guidance and support in developing policies for staff who interact with federal immigration officers and who require a judicial warrant to enter nonpublic areas.

• Act Now!

  • Governor McKee has been silent as countless Rhode Island residents have been terrorized and ripped from our communities. We demand that he take action NOW to protect our neighbors and create a safer community for all of us!

Halen, PGA organizer, acting as emcee.

We’re here to do what we do best: disrupt the corrupt. We’re demanding that Governor McKee take immediate action to remove ICE from Rhode Island and, further, ban them from ever coming back. These terrorist thugs parading as law enforcement continue to terrorize our communities and rip families and lives apart while using our beautiful cities to stage their attacks. We’re here today to make it clear that ICE has overstayed its welcome in the Ocean State, and it can get the fuck out of here for good. Governor McKee has had the power to protect our immigrant community and stand in solidarity with them, but just like Mayor Smiley, in January, he’s decided to sit on his laurels and watch ICE and other law enforcement assholes have their way with the defenseless. He’s quite literally choosing violence by choosing silence.

We’re not here to just let the political process play out. We’re here to force those holding power to do their fucking job.

Hope, organizer with the PGA

Thank you all for coming out tonight to kick ICE out of Rhode Island. I’m speaking tonight on behalf of the Providence General Assembly. We are a democratic and open space where all anti-antifascist, truly progressive forces can come together to fight back and strategize ways to build a better future. It is through the strength, solidarity, and mutual aid we extend to one another that we work to defend people and communities under attack. It is our dedication to that mission that brings us here tonight.

I’m sure at this point we are all aware that ICE has been terrorizing cities across the country. We watched the fighting spirit of the vibrant and diverse community of Angelinos as they fought to give ICE hell in LA. We cheered on the mayor of Chicago as he worked to keep ICE out of his city, and were disgusted by the midnight raid of a South Shore apartment complex full of working-class families as if it were a military operation on par with the illegal abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. It would’ve been hard to miss the coverage on the brutal murders of Renee Goode and Alex Pretti as they put their bodies and their whiteness on the line in the streets of Minneapolis to protect their immigrant neighbors. We mourn the loss of Keith Porter, executed by ICE agents, as he was celebrating New Year’s Eve, and we felt the fury of mothers and fathers everywhere as we watched Liam Conejo Ramos, the little boy in the blue bunny hat, deteriorating in the Dilley Detention Center.

What few of us know is that ICE is also terrorizing communities right here in Rhode Island. Around this time last year, about a mile away, a man was tased by Dexter Park and injured to the point where he needed medical treatment. Then, he was denied access to his lawyer while he was held in Rhode Island Hospital. Reminiscent of the scenes we’ve seen out of Minneapolis, cars have been left idling across the state and right here in Providence’s West End. ICE hangs around our elementary schools, hoping to take people during morning drop-off. They snag people at our courthouses doing exactly what the government says they should be doing. They take folks who have repaid what the American government would call their debt to society, as they are released from the ACI. ICE is not just in our backyard. They have knocked down our front door.

The PGA refuses to let them enter easily. We are responding to ICE terror with immigrant solidarity. We are organizing to protect our friends and neighbors in Providence, Rhode Island, and in the surrounding communities. We are building people power in the face of adversity, mobilizing where our government fails to keep us safe. Since its beginning, the Immigrant Solidarity Working Group has been dedicated to this duty. We have been creating partnerships with individuals and organizations within our community. We’ve accompanied people to court appointments and immigration appointments. We have successfully helped return a few individuals to their families after fundraising, driving to Burlington and Boston, and making phone calls.

We’ve served as verifiers for the Deportation Defense Line [401‑675‑1414] and connected with local churches and schools to learn how best to support our immigrant neighbors. We have taken the knowledge and experience we gained from these acts to help create a guide for families at risk of ICE harassment, combining know-your-rights information with practical advice on navigating the detention of a loved one, and we continue to distribute that throughout the area.

But I think our most public act of immigrant solidarity was the ICE Out of Providence campaign. We demanded that the city ban ICE from city property, ban the Providence Police from collaborating with ICE, and post signage everywhere reinforcing it. After rallying the city, we were able to pressure Mayor Smiley into issuing an executive order meeting our demands. Tonight, we take that same responsibility to Governor McKee and our state legislators. We demand accountability from the Rhode Island government for keeping our neighbors safe.

Governor McKee must issue an executive order banning ICE from state property. He must prevent state agencies from collaborating with ICE and protect our public institutions by providing clear guidance and support for their interactions with ICE. Governor McKee must act now to protect everyone in the little state we call home. I want to thank you all for standing with us tonight to demand that McKee kick ICE out of Rhode Island, but I don’t want you to stop here. Today, tomorrow, the next day, and the day after that, I want you all to keep working until our demands are met.

Kate, PGA organizer

I am here to call on Governor McKee to send ICE and the Trump regime a message. We want ICE out of Rhode Island. For the past several years, I’ve volunteered as an interpreter and advocate in ICE detention camps in Texas, New York, and Rhode Island. I have worked remotely with detainees in ICE camps all over the country. I’ve been inside Dilly, the baby jail where children are held with their parents, and I’ve been inside the Wyatt here in Central Falls. I’ve worked with Rhode Islanders from many different towns and cities who are at risk of being targeted by Trump’s secret police or have already been detained by ICE, including victims of Trump’s family separation policy. I’ve read report after report about community members from Bristol to Cranston, from Newport to Providence, being taken by ICE. I have stood watch in the vestibules of churches in Cranston and Providence, alongside other members of the Providence General Assembly, to keep parishioners safe.

And as a volunteer with organizations like the Asylum Clinic at our local medical school, I’ve listened to the stories of many Rhode Island residents who want to live a life free from detention or disappearance. I’m here to tell you that ICE actions impact people in every town and city in Rhode Island, and the people that ICE is targeting are our coworkers and our friends. They’re the people who own the businesses that we frequent and who heal our loved ones when they’re sick.

We’re watching ICE take people off the street and reading horrifying stories every day. We’re coming out to actions like this one. We’re supporting folks who are protesting inside and outside of Delaney Hall in New Jersey. We aren’t burying our heads in the sand. We’re all people who work, have families, and are trying to do this work as well as we can. I’m not here to ask anything more of you. I’m here to ask for more from one person: Governor McKee.

The last time I spoke out about ICE, it was at a rally like this, the one that Hope mentioned, where we convinced the mayor, who was reticent, to help us, to do something finally, and he did. We’re here today to extend that call to the entire state.

The question should be, “Why isn’t he doing anything?” It isn’t as if other people in this region aren’t already working as hard as they can to help. We have a federal judge in Rhode Island who struck down Trump’s asylum ban with a 135-page indictment on this issue. The Governor of Massachusetts has already extended these protections across her entire state, and she’s provided the guidance we need in our schools and hospitals. And the same thing has happened in Connecticut.

But here we are. Why isn’t it happening here in the happy middle that is Rhode Island? We need to call Governor McKee every day at 222-2080 until he finally does something, because the session might end here, but he can sign an executive order anytime he wants.

Pastor Santiago Rodriguez:

I am a member of the clergy community, representing the Lutheran and Episcopal Churches. Thank you for the invitation to raise my voice against all kinds of abuse, violence, and injustice. It is not true Christianity if we don’t speak up for our people, especially for those who don’t have a voice or power. We need to be their voice.

Governor McKee is supposed to provide a safe place for us. He is not doing that. Just two weeks ago, we were working on a case. One of our people was detained by ICE. She was taking lunch. ICE was waiting for her, and they took her to New Hampshire, and then to Pennsylvania, and from there to another state. That causes a lot of confusion for our people and their families. We have been busy searching for her in various places. We had a lawyer stop the deportation because that was their initial intention: to deport her immediately. We allowed her to see a judge, and that’s why she stays here.

I suspect that somebody at the State House or the police is leaking information about our people. That is the worst thing they can do. That means that many people inside this State House are cooperating with ICE. That has been happening consistently. Our churches are working to make our buildings and properties safer. We’ve got ICE coming to violate our property and intimidate or scare our people inside our sacred buildings.

This is getting worse, so we need to work very hard to be sure that Governor McKee is doing this for God. We need to continue gathering, joining together on the street, protecting, raising our voices so that people know the authorities know that we are fighting for our people. Let us continue doing this and let the people know, especially our community of immigrants, that they are not alone in their needs, problems, or situations, and that they have people like you who protect and fight for them, their relations, and their safety net.

Representative David Morales

Friends, as we have watched over the last several months, there’s been a spike in ICE activity across Providence because we have seen disturbing footage caught by advocates from the Deportation Defense Network across the West End, across Silver Lake, where there was a presence just this past Sunday, outside of Hope High School, and the courthouses downtown. In each of those incidents, it has been the community that has stood up and driven ICE away from our community. We have been met with silence from both the state and the city. In this moment, we need real action. Providence is a sanctuary city, but we’re a sanctuary city that’s ready to defend our immigrant community.

To every community member right here who’s been a part of the deportation defense network, whether you have called them anytime, you have seen suspicious activity, or whether you yourself have shown up to protect our immigrant neighbors and their needs. Thank you. Thank you for filling in the gaps where the government has consistently failed. And it shouldn’t be that way. And for that reason, we’re gathered here to call on the governor to use this power through executive orders to ensure that we don’t allow the use of unmarked vehicles in our city, we do not allow officers to mask themselves, and ensure that ICE is finally out of our state.

Make no mistake: there’s a lot more that we in the legislature can do. Tomorrow, we’ll be voting on four immigrant protection bills. We’re voting on a misdemeanor reform bill that will ensure that when an immigrant gets charged with a misdemeanor, they don’t find themselves in a position where they’re going to be automatically subjected to deportation. This is an effort that’s taken several years, and it’s been because of community advocacy and the pressure that’s been applied to the “leaders” of the House and the Senate that we’re finally moving forward on this.

We’re taking action on legislation that would prohibit ICE from locating anywhere near polling sites, to ensure that every neighbor feels safe when it’s time to vote in September, November, or any special election.

There’s action being taken, so there are stricter requirements to ensure that ICE does not have a presence near our courthouses, as we’ve been seeing in downtown Providence.

And lastly, we’re taking action on legislation that would allow individuals to file a private cause of action against ICE. Because what we need to do right now in this moment is press charges against the fascists that are terrorizing our community. We need to make sure that the City of Providence is using the city’s solicitor’s office to prosecute rogue ICE agents. We should expect the same from the Attorney General’s office. But if they refuse to act, at least we have a law in place stating that, as individuals, we have the power to file suit.

We’ll be voting on that legislation tomorrow, and I’m urging community members to come out and watch as the debate unfolds. It’s at 4:00 pm. And I’ll be honest: I feel confident the bills will pass, but I also feel nervous about certain legislators. They’re going to use offensive terms like “illegal” or “alien,” and that’s going to be reflected in our public records, which will show that we had officials who felt like it was okay to use that type of disgusting rhetoric against our community.

We all know the way this works. Behavior shifts when eyes are watching. If you’re able to take some time tomorrow to be here at the State House, where these decisions are being made, let it be known that we have a statewide coalition getting ready to say we want ICE out of Rhode Island.

I want to end by saying that there’s still a lot more work to do. Even after we pass those four pieces of legislation, there is a lot that has to be done to make sure our immigrant neighbors actually feel safe, because it has been the community that has stood up time and time again. For those of you who have accompanied immigrant community members to their court hearings, and for those of you who have stepped up to help your immigrant neighbor in need when their child needs a ride to school or when they themselves need rides to work, thank you.

Thank you for being there for one another, because it’s going to be a community that takes care of each other. There is so much that our state can and should have been doing over the last two and a half years under this fascist regime, but again, we have failed to meet the moment; the community has not failed to meet the moment. And so it’s always special to be able to gather, knowing that there are tons of neighbors who care about a neighbor you don’t even know. Thousands of immigrants across Rhode Island are proud to call our state home and want to continue doing so. And we’re making it very clear that in Rhode Island, we take care of one another. We take care of our immigrant community.

Devora, PGA organizer

I work at a public library in Providence. I’m here today speaking on behalf of myself as an individual, as a Providence resident, and as a member of the Providence General Assembly. And I want to tell you a little bit about what I’ve seen while working for a public service agency in Rhode Island. Also, as a Providence resident, I live blocks from the State House, and I’ve witnessed federal enforcement action just down the street from my house.

Working at a public-facing institution since the election, we’ve seen increased fear and confusion among coworkers and among the people that we serve. It affects us in many ways, but obviously, one of the biggest is that when people are scared, they’re less likely to access free resources and support offered by our public-facing agencies, such as public libraries. It’s difficult to know what we can tell people to keep them safe while still letting them come to our places, provide these resources, or even what general guidance we can offer them. We’ve done a lot of research, and my work eventually came up with a policy on our own; it was based largely on national resources, things that weren’t really specific to Rhode Island and our community, and wouldn’t necessarily be consistent with other agencies across the state.

The guidance we were able to put out isn’t necessarily what someone will hear elsewhere, and it won’t provide the same level of security we would like to provide to the people we serve. And it’s not just us - I’ve talked to teachers in Providence schools and healthcare workers, and they share the same concern. We, like schools, especially worry because we see a lot of unattended kids, and this makes the threat of ICE picking up parents or family members, especially upsetting and logistically complicated, about how we handle those situations on a day-to-day basis. We’re talking to kids who are scared about what’s happening. I’ve heard this from teachers and from people who work with kids: The kids in our community are unaware of what’s going on, and they’re scared for their families.

What can we tell them about what our state is doing to keep them and their parents safe? Not much. Many organizations have internal processes for handling these situations, but having statewide guidance and consistency would make a huge difference. As far as I know, most public-facing institutions haven’t gotten any guidance of this kind from our state government. Rhode Island takes a lot of pride in touting itself as a strong blue state, but I’m not really sure what that means if we can’t take the lead on something like this in this moment. In an election year and in a state that has such a strong and beloved immigrant community, we should be seeing a lot more leadership from our governor and our legislators around these demands, but especially around offering guidance to public-facing agencies about standing up to protect our neighbors and what information and guidance we can give to our communities.

Melonie Perez, lead organizer for the Behind the Walls Committee at DARE

At DARE, we organize alongside people who have been directly impacted by incarceration, probation, poverty, and systemic injustice. Every week, I sit with families who are fighting to stay together, to bring loved ones home, and to be treated with dignity. That’s why I’m here today, because the struggle for immigrant justice and the struggle for criminal justice reform are connected. The same systems that separate families through detention and deportation are often the same systems that separate families through incarceration. The same fear that immigrant families feel when ICE could take away a loved one is a fear that many families in our criminal legal system know all too well. As a mother of an incarcerated son, I understand that fear personally. I know what it feels like to worry, every day, about someone you love, to wonder if they’re safe, being treated fairly, and if they will come home.

At DARE, one of our major campaigns is Bail on 32, which seeks to reform Rhode Island’s probation violation system. Right now, people can be jailed for an alleged probation violation before they’ve been convicted of a new crime. Families are torn apart because of this. People lose their jobs, their housing, and custody of their children, all before they’ve had their day in court. Why do I bring that up today? Whether we’re talking about ICE detention, incarceration, deportation, or probation violations, the impact is the same: Families are being separated, communities are being destabilized, and people are being denied the dignity and due process they deserve.

We cannot talk about justice while families live in fear. ICE needs to get out of Rhode Island. We cannot talk about public safety while children are wondering if their parents will come home. That’s why ICE needs to be out of Rhode Island.

We cannot claim to value family if we continue to support systems that unnecessarily tear families apart. The people targeted by ICE are not strangers. They’re our neighbors. They are workers, students, parents, and community members. They’re people who contribute to Rhode Island every single day. At DARE, we believe that every person deserves dignity regardless of where they were born, the language they speak, or what mistakes they made in their past. We believe that people deserve due process. We believe that families belong together. That’s why ICE needs to get out of Rhode Island. We believe that no one should live in fear of being separated from the people they love. That’s why we stand in solidarity with immigrant communities today, because our struggles are connected. When one community is targeted, we’re all affected. When we come together across issues, neighborhoods, and communities, we are stronger.

So today, let us stand united and send a clear message.

Rex, PGA organizer

While I’m incredibly white, I know what it’s like to have the government be like, “You suck. We’re going to kill you. We’re coming for you.” I live in Newport. You may not know this, but ICE is active in Newport. We had a couple of organizers from the Deportation Defense Line [401‑675‑1414] organize their own group, which has since grown to include operators and verifiers working within the broader Deportation Defense Line network. We’re seeing ICE almost every Thursday or Friday.

Newport’s a weird little place. It’s a touristy playground for the rich. It’s racially diverse but highly segregated, and Black and brown people are working to support that tourism industry. They’re working to support all the rich people in their fancy hotels, restaurants, and mansions, and this is how they’re being treated. Another weird thing about Newport is that Newport used to be a hub for the transatlantic slave trade, as ship after ship of kidnapped Africans arrived on Newport’s shores, building that wealth. And that was only after white colonists took that land from the indigenous brown people there.

Newport and Rhode Island have a lot of atoning to do. Clearly, our elected leaders do not care because we are out here demanding what they should already be doing: Protect the people, and not the rich people, but the Black and brown people who need that help and support the most, who’ve been the most disenfranchised and oppressed.

In Newport, one of the things that gives me hope is the fact that this is a small group of people that is ever-growing. We’re building this grassroots organization, and while we have some ties to the greater Deportation Defense Network, we’re independent, doing our own thing, and starting to chip away at some of the things that the white neoliberals of Newport have taken for granted, like “the police will protect us.” Let’s have the police protect us from ICE!

They’re learning that lesson that the police are absolutely complicit, the hard way.

We are documenting that in our interactions with ICE. We need total abolition, and ICE out of Rhode Island is definitely a start. I charge you all to make life miserable for Governor McKee. He needs to do better. He knows he has to do better. Start organizing in your neighborhoods because they’re not coming to save us. We protect ourselves. We need to form those alliances and mutual aid groups, as you see here today. So, Newport and all the other cities and towns in Rhode Island, I hope we can all come together, look out for each other, and protect each other.

The Reverend Duane Clinker

For 13 years, I worked on assembly lines: welding, putting stuff together in factories, and trying to wake up and resist. I cut sugar cane in Cuba in 1970 to try to break the blockade. I don’t usually say this kind of stuff, but recognizing I’m the oldest person here, I wanted to add some context in case I seem a little pissed. I spent 20 years professionally organizing my coworkers and other workers into communities, unions, strikes, organizing drives, and defensive work.

And then, please don’t take offense, I was introduced again to the historical Jesus. I’m not asking anybody to go there with me. I’m telling you a story. I discovered that Jesus was a revolutionary. When I look at the historical record, and you don’t have to believe it. Not everybody believes it, but you can imagine coming from where y’all are coming from: outcast, put on, told your love should be illegal, told your work should be illegal, told that you are illegal, you’re in danger of becoming illegal, or we’re in danger of saying too much. You can understand that the story of Jesus gripped me.

I had that moment. I’ve spent 13 years on the line, 20 years in professional organizing, and 25 years in ministry, trying to build liberated spaces in which we can talk honestly with ourselves.

It’s an amazing, beautiful day, and you know, because you have somebody in your life that you’ve loved or you want to love, you know as well as I or anybody else, the beauty in life, even if it’s something that you’re just aspiring to now or hoping for. It’s here. I want to talk for a couple of minutes about worldview, and then I’ll shut up and say ICE out. Okay?

This is a complex place. It’s a complex world full of beauty and oppression, pain and love, which convinces me that the story isn’t over and that we still have a chance to do something. Radical love exists. Radical means root. The root. The root of love. When coming into the cosmos, you know that every item of our bodies is from an exploded star somewhere, quite literally, quite scientifically. This is pretty bizarre. Why is there pain? Why is there beauty? Why is there evil? I don’t know. Why is there good except that the world’s in struggle and we are a part of that struggle, and as conscious beings, we have a role in it. That’s why this ICE moment is so critical. It’s a beautiful day, and we have the darkness of fascism already consolidating around us.

It is very late, as you know.

This is beautiful, and it has to be said, and we don’t know how it comes out, but we have to struggle against it with everything we’ve got now. The world is in process (don’t tell the fundamentalists it’s still being created). It’s an ongoing cosmos. We can’t figure it out. We’ll never figure it out, I don’t think. But there’s a kind of magic in it sometimes, isn’t there? You can feel that. You can feel it in the beauty of a flower, your animal, or your mate, but you can also feel it in the struggle. You can feel it in the victory. Have you been in the room that wins? Part of organizing is creating the rooms where you win and finding the issue so you can win. Why? Because you won’t win the whole ballgame in the first fight.

You’ll win the ballgame down the road because you’ve got to train each other in how to struggle. Part of that is building community.

Can I get one more thing off my chest? We call this capitalism, which is a stupid word. It means money-ism. There’s some truth in what that’s about, but that word is not adequate because it doesn’t define the evil. I want to give you a quote from Jesus: “The love of money is the root of all evil.”

It’s not capitalism, money-ism. It’s the lust for individual wealth. I’m not going to ask you to step back, but you know how high the State House dome is. If that dome represented American wealth, then the bottom 50% is about right here, hand high, and the top is up there. Think about that for a minute. The schools, healthcare, and environment, and all the things we need, are right here, hand high, and all the rest is being spent for private lust, for this or that bauble of gold or silver or power. So I don’t argue about names. It’s moneyism. It’s sheer greedism. It is the system. And the alternative is community. It’s radical love horizontally.

That’s why I wanted to give that background, because you know what we’re here for, “ICE out of Rhode Island and everywhere else.” How many of you remember the Proud Boys? We were having a demonstration around unhoused folks. We had heard a rumor (develop your rumor systems) that the Proud Boys were going to come and bust us up. That’s very close to home. And what happened to the Proud Boys?

They got jobs. Have you heard about the ICE recruitment? This is some serious stuff. Take no offense, may God bless you all. I know you’re not a Bible crowd, but I want to let you know how it feels to be a follower of the radical Jesus and see this shit:

[Reverend Clinker pulls a photocopy of the Trump Bible from his pocket]

The Presidential edition of the Holy Bible with the seal of Babylon, otherwise known as the United States of America. God bless the USA, commemorating the 45th and 47th Presidents of the United States.

Don’t believe everything you hear about followers of Jesus. Go deep and accept no bullshit.

Mike, PGA’s Cop Watch

Attacks on immigrants and the unhoused are part of an entwined system of white supremacy and capitalism. The repression of immigrants and the unhoused shares threads that are essential to the fabric of the existing carceral social order. Criminalization and scapegoating, eugenicism and social disposability, violence, and social exclusion. In Providence, we have some of the highest rent increases in the country. They’ve been steadily pushing poor and working-class people out of the city or onto the street. We continue to have functionally non-existent community mental health programs. Addiction is still treated as a policing issue rather than a public health issue. Our shelters are insufficient, understaffed, and full of rodents. For instance, some of you may know this: the Crossroads, Rhode Island Shelter, spent $250,000 to light up the top of their building while unhoused people assemble at the base of that building every single day for services they do not receive.

Given these realities, it is not surprising that the number of people living on the streets has gradually grown over the last five to six years. Should working-class and poor people be punished because of the systemic failure of capitalism in the state? No. Can our collective solidarity beat back this racist scapegoating? Yes. Mayor Smiley is currently criminalizing and removing unhoused people. At the same time, Governor McKee is continuing to allow ICE to terrorize our neighbors. These are symptoms of the same longstanding disease. There isn’t that much difference between Donald Trump deploying modern neofascist militias to hunt immigrants in the U.S. and McKee’s inability to say ICE is not welcome here.

Smiley treating the unhoused as a nuisance to be displaced rather than a group of people to be helped isn’t terribly different than Trump’s calls to bring back the asylums, if you remember that. With friends like these, how do we fight back? Are we going to vote our way out of this? No. Are we going to social media to post our way out of this? No. Are we going to speak away at us? No. The Providence General Assembly seeks to embody a mission of active solidarity in a humble way. Our assembling here today is one small manifestation of that solidarity. We feel that people should be able to work and live wherever they want and that they should be allowed to do that with dignity and without fear. Do you agree?

The PGA started our Cop Watch project in the winter of 2025 in response to police harassing unhoused people downtown. In this town, they are increasingly seen as a barrier to further gentrification. Their presence in Kennedy Plaza and Burnside Park is seen as a frustration to turning the Superman building into luxury housing. Instead of using city resources to help the unhoused, our taxes are being raised to hire police to harass that same population of people.

Right now, the unhoused are seen as a blemish on the facade of an equitable and fair city. Smiley and McKee are trying to present this to the influx of tourists that are coming in this week. There’s no room for those who have been left behind in McKee and Smiley’s temporary FIFA Disneyland. We don’t want a city that refuses to help those who need it and instead represses them. We don’t need a city government that sees policing as the primary solution to housing problems, poverty, mental health needs, or immigration status.

The punitive response criminalizes those who need help and punishes those who need protection. We call Providence the creative capital. It shouldn’t create more people sleeping in doorways, but it shouldn’t create more police to sweep those people from those same doorways. We call Providence the Creative Capital. It shouldn’t help create fear in immigrant communities, and it shouldn’t then create more police to assist those ICE agents as they have been doing. The World Cup is coming to Foxborough from June 11 to July 19. Thousands of wealthy tourists will come here from all over the world that month to eat, drink, shop, and celebrate. The police have declared they are planning to push the unhoused out of downtown as part of this process.

FIFA, the organization that oversees the World Cup, is the same one that recently gave Trump a peace prize. Peace for the wealthy and crumbs for the rest, if we should be so lucky. The PGA’s Providence Cop Watch has expanded in the past few weeks, with dozens of people out. Patrolling downtown in the morning, the afternoon, and at night every single day. As the World Cup is commencing this Friday, June 12, we will be marching throughout downtown to bring awareness to the continued harassment of unhoused people at 8 pm this Friday at Burnside Park. Our goal is to let tourists know that the people swept under the rug they are currently partying on are the ones we are standing in solidarity with. Cop watch will continue in the coming weeks, and if you’re interested in getting involved, talk to Charlie or me.

We’re also actively planning more marches beyond this Friday. So, as is typically the case, Smiley doesn’t care, and McKee probably isn’t aware. They might not care what we think. They might care what the tourists think. Either way, we aren’t going anywhere.

Charlie, organizer with POWR

I’m speaking on behalf of the Providence Organization of Workers and Renters (POWR). We are a worker and tenant organization using direct action and democratic organizing to build power to take control of our neighborhoods, workplaces, and community institutions. Over the last three years, power has organized with members in concrete struggles against slumlords. We’ve been a source of community knowledge for hundreds of workers and renters.

We’ve also shaped tenant organizing in the city with our concrete demands for a rent freeze, lower rents, and housing justice. So we’re here today in solidarity with the PGA and everyone working to defend their communities from ICE. As organizers and as many have said, we know it is always right to defend communities under attack and that all of our struggles are connected. We also know how connected tenant and worker organizing and immigrant solidarity are and need to be in the face of fascism. In cities like Chicago, Minneapolis, and LA, people are using neighborhood-level community defense through rapid-response and mutual aid networks to defend their neighbors against the police, ICE, landlords, and other threats, just like we’ve been doing here. Organizers in these places are also calling for eviction moratoriums to help neighbors.

We need a statewide eviction moratorium to help neighbors who are already feeling the economic and psychological effects of ICE’s brutality, whether because a family member has been detained or deported or because they’re worried that leaving their home to go to work might mean getting swept up in a raid and not making it back. ICE’s reign of terror is alive in Rhode Island. Anyone who’s been keeping up with the ICE hotline knows that the Garrahy Judicial Complex has been a hotbed of ICE sightings and activity over the last year and a half. Just this past January, ICE forced its way into the Garrahy Courthouse, bypassing security and refusing to check their weapons at the door as they chased people through the building.

That courthouse is state property, and Governor McKee called ICE actions that day indefensible, yet has taken no action to prevent this from happening again tomorrow. ICE has been here in Rhode Island long before this administration, tearing families apart, ripping loved ones from their families and neighbors. We know that we are the ones who keep each other safe as friends and neighbors, and that the last thing we need is more cops and law enforcement patrolling our streets. There is no amount of training or intentional hiring practices that can change the fact that ICE and the cops do not protect us. They protect landlords, bosses, private property, and the power of the state.

So one of our guiding principles in power is the insistence that we, the people, have the power to change the conditions in which we live. No politician or legislation is going to save us. We organize to build this people power and make politicians answer to us, not the other way around. When we use direct action to wield this power, we get what we want. We did it in January by getting Mayor Smiley to sign an executive order banning ICE from city property, which he is now campaigning on. Now we need Governor McKee to grow a spine and do the same. So kick ICE out of Rhode Island.

Iggy, PGA organizer

Ladies, gentlemen, and friends beyond the binary, I am here speaking today on behalf of the TransUnity and Resistance Working Group of the PGA. Yes. We are the newest of the PGA working groups created out of the recognition of the coordinated attacks on trans people’s ability to exist and be ourselves. We understood that we needed collective transpower to resist and overcome this attack. We look to create a space where trans people and our accomplices can come together and coordinate with other truly progressive forces to defend trans people’s bodily autonomy and access to the necessities of life, grow local transpower from community to unity and solidarity. And through our struggle, we strive to build a better, freer world.

Trans unity and resistance wanted to make our presence known and seen today because we stand in solidarity with and use what little privilege we trans people do have to protect all marginalized individuals, all oppressed people, in particular our comrades who are being kidnapped, murdered, raped, tortured, and terrorized by ICE cowards. We, trans people, know our history. We have to, because it’s always repeating itself, and we’ve been... Sorry. We’ve been villainized, scapegoated, oppressed, and murdered for our entire existence. We understand that all of our class struggles are either marginalized communities’ struggles or shared struggles. We also know that all cops are bastards, not just the gang members of ICE, because it’s a thin blue line between love and hate. And if you so choose to cross it, you are a Nazi for the state.

The Trump administration has targeted both immigrants and the trans community since day one. Although by different methods, they’re trying to achieve the same goal with both of us, to eliminate us from existence. Trump and his cabinet of pedophilic genocidal monsters have been targeting our immigrant neighbors because they know that they’re too marginalized to defend or advocate for themselves. The Trump administration’s naked aggression towards immigrants is a result of pure cowardice, as they know that targeting other, less vulnerable communities in such a violent way would receive far more pushback from society. Raping women and children, starving, tortured, and forced detransitions. No, I’m not describing the actions of the IDF. These are the behaviors of ICE gang members. They’re abducting and kidnapping our community members with zero due process. Deporting them to countries they’ve never even been to. Sending them to for- profit prisons run with zero oversight or accountability.

Changing. Sending them to concentration camps on U.S. soil, paid for with our fucking tax dollars.

It may not be quite as blatant and out in the open, but theTrump administration has also been trying to eliminate trans people from existence, enacting a legislative genocide against us. Incriminating our very existence is justification to incarcerate us. Labeling us as terrorists just because we don’t subscribe to their Christofascist worldview existing outside of the patriarchal gender binary. Our right to exist, our bodily autonomy, access to gender affirming care, freedom to travel, even our ability to use a fucking bathroom, changes from state to state. The pedophiles in charge have made it impossible for us to obtain or renew passports, making it impossible for any of us to seek asylum elsewhere should we so choose. The intersectionality between our struggles as trans folks and the struggles of immigrants is undeniable. The methods of execution differ, but the administration’s goal is crystal clear. They want us both gone by any means necessary.

But we aren’t going anywhere. We won’t stay quiet, and we will not go without a fucking fight because we are trans and we throw motherfucking hands.

No war but class war. Our working group is called TransUnity and Resistance. We understand the strength and importance of a united community as a prerequisite for any act of resistance. Just five months ago, there was a rally like this to put pressure on Mayor Smiley to get ice out of Providence. We went inside City Hall, disrupted their political process, and through our collective efforts, we achieved our goal. Smiley might have acted like it was his idea and taken all the credit, but we all know that that’s bullshit. We, workers, busted our assets putting in the work to make our community safer. And in typical Bourgeois fashion, the ruling class takes the credit for our ideas and our labor. It was our collective resistance, our voices, that resulted in legislative action. So I stand before you here today just as I did in January, this time representing trans unity and resistance and solidarity with my fellow oppressed people, the immigrants.

We demand that Governor McKee get ICE out of the State of Rhode Island.

The Providence General Assembly is an open, democratic movement space that meets regularly, where all anti-fascist, truly progressive forces can coordinate and strategize a way to fight back, a way to build a better world. We will collectively decide how to coordinate with anyone willing to help defend immigrants or LGBTQ people from attack, to find ways to help bolster solidarity efforts with Palestine, to organize with workers and tenants, or to coordinate with mutual aid and emergency preparation. General Assembly mass meetings are held every other Saturday at 12 pm at 134 Mathewson St., Providence, RI. The next General Assembly after the press conference will take place on June 20, 2026.