As President Trump moves forward with a campaign promise to increase deportations, a prominent immigrant advocacy group is rolling out an expanded set of “Know Your Rights,” training and community defense materials in multiple languages for undocumented immigrants and advocates.
The Immigrant Defense Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for fairness for immigrants accused of or convicted of crimes, has been tracking, seeking information about and training community members on ICE raids and arrests for years. They argue that communities have to recognize ICE tactics, help individuals facing possible deportation be prepared and fight back through organizing or in the courts.
Michelle Parris, staff attorney and director of training and resources for the Immigrant Defense Project, said the guidance reflects the Trump administration’s approach — and that the structure was already in place under former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
“We updated information about what we’ve already seen and what we anticipate based on the history of ICE tactics, which is information that appears in the toolkit,” Parris said. “We’ve already seen a return to some of the wild and problematic tactics of ICE that existed under Bush and even under Obama before 2014 and so we wanted to make sure that people understood the shifts in how immigration agents are doing their jobs.”