RE-EXISTIR BULLETIN

Issue #3: this is not normal
Summer 2025
native lands “inland empire”

READ & DOWNLOAD HERE: rex3

Stay tuned for Issue #4, Fall 2025!

“Individuals who enter into a revolutionary process are by no means the same after the revolution as they were before it began. Those who encounter a modicum of success in revolutionary times learn more within a span of a few weeks or months than they might have learned over their lifetime in non-revolutionary times. Conventional ideas fall away with extraordinary rapidity; values and prejudices that were centuries in the making disappear almost overnight. Strikingly innovative ideas are quickly adopted, tested, and, where necessary, discarded… individuals grow aware of latent powers within themselves that nourish their previously suppressed creativity, sense of self-worth, and solidarity.” — Murray Bookchin 

SANCTUARY = REVOLUTION

In America, the writing is on the wall: the early emergence of a Second Civil War. White power has been on the decline for decades, losing its leverage because of Euro-American demographic decline. Now, white power seeks to violently re-establish racial hierarchies through fascist measures and economic nationalism. They’re at war to exclusively secure the last of what’s left: profits and planetary resources.

Given the recent rulings on birthright citizenship—where the Supreme Court ruled that courts cannot legally contest executive orders—everyone is realizing the truth of this country: if all of our rights were always conditional, then we never truly had them. Fuck that: our existence does not require recognition.

The stated goal of this white power administration is to deport 1 million people per year. The federal bill that was passed by the Senate will provide over $350 billion for the “national security” agenda, meaning billions for: the border wall, detention facilities, new ICE officers, coordination with federal enforcement, and more weapons of war.

It doesn’t end there. Once this massive deportation infrastructure is built, it will not stop with their current targets. Mass kidnapping is a profitable enterprise: this will self-perpetuate new classes of people to detain, fill detention beds and meet quotas. This vast kidnapping machine has created a new secret police, and we have already seen it re-purposed towards perceived enemies of the system. Today they come for TPS and refugees, tomorrow it will be all immigrants “naturalized” in the 80s, then it will be the “first-generation” citizens, and so on. 

This is only the beginning: something worse than neoliberalism is on the horizon. The only thing left that can stop the coming fascism is a decentralized diffusion of uprisings. Sanctuary will never be procured by a city council nor by a new constitution. Sanctuary will be an illegalist striving that generalizes safety and freedom by abolishing all of the state’s forms of capture—from citizenship to prisons to borders. Sanctuary for all can now only arise from the militant rebellions for total autonomy. Read on to learn more. 

FOR ICE TO MELT, SET FIRE TO U.S. EMPIRE

“Our electoral ballots will be the bullets our guns fire. From today onwards, the swords wielded by the mercenaries of Caesar will encounter not the defenseless breast of the citizen who exercises their civic functions, but the bayonets of the rebels ready to repay blow with blow. It would be senseless to respond through the law to someone who does not respect the law; it would be absurd to open statute books to defend ourselves from an attack with a bayonet or from being shot down as a fugitive. The tyrant dies from stab wounds, not from articles of the legal code.” — Ricardo Flores Magon, Illegals (Regeneración, September 3, 1910)

The terrain of protesting was never suited for this moment.

The state has shown us all its cards. They have militarized their forces to a maximum in this sequence of struggles, flexing their firepower with so-called “Operation Excalibur” at MacArthur Park in early July. This operation focused on a show of force versus a use of force: this is the military placing its stake in politics. Their failed inter-agency operation eviscerates the notion that the national guard or marines are merely “neutral” forces, when they choose to mobilize with their MRAP tanks and heavy rifles to march through a park with children on the swings and zero threats present. Their goal is to generate fear in the population. The U.S. military deliberately sides itself with fascisms’s fantasy of total occupation. 

We are living in an era beyond the protest stage. After the kidnapping raid in Ventura county in July where a farmworker fell to his death while evading agents, ICE’s violent spectacles have resulted in the indirect murder of a migrant. We see that the police and the marines have become the frontline defense for ICE officers’ kidnapping regime. The military’s invasion of LA/SoCal, and their arrest of protestors, is a serious and sweeping use of federal power: the writing is on the wall, a red flag of the incoming fascism.

Concurrently, the counter-insurgency of liberals, democrats, and socialists attempt to steal the thunder of the moment. Let’s remind everyone that the Obama democrats deported more of our people than Trump ever has. It doesn’t matter how many progressives take office, the wheels of the citizenship-border-complex will continue to turn. So-called “sanctuary cities” have always been a bluff that the feds have now called out. As the June uprisings demonstrated, militant self-defense decreased ICE’s ability to arrest people more than anything officials have tried. The limit of DSA/PSL efforts are clear for all to see, centering strategies that try to get their favored candidates into office, only for their elected to demonstrate that they are powerless and “too afraid” to do anything (see: LA city council’s democratic socialists). 

LOOKING BACKWARD
A few tactical successes seen: Blocking ICE at the courthouses; Gang truces to resist ICE; Calling the hotels; Abandoning English-speaking-only silos; Place-based defense centers; Intentional efforts to build with neighbors, migrants, and politically mobilizing one’s web of relations (co-workers, family, best friends, partners, roommates).

Neighborhood watch is good propaganda, but not so much as real obstruction to deportations; Although counter-patrolling may cause friction on the terrain that feds operate on, it also causes them to act quicker and more brutally. Resisting ICE must shift away from waiting for them to arrive to our hoods, and instead direct the fight to ICE infrastructures.

Realistically, we don’t have the time or resources for high-mobility tactics that mirror the mobility of agencies with billion dollar budgets. A month after the military take-over of SoCal, comrades must re-assess the benefits of rapid response; as a preventative measure against burn-out and internal conflicts.

The “innocence” narrative must be actively abandoned by all who care to resist: appealing to “non-criminality” or “peacefulness” has not stopped violent persecution by the state towards our community and activists; Given that over 60% of those kidnapped by ICE in June have no criminal charges (LA Times, “Most nabbed in L.A. raids were men with no criminal conviction”), appealing to “good protesting” or morality doesn’t stop a machine hell-bent on ethnic cleansing.

Spreading virtual footage/clickbait on the raids does not actually raise consciousness, rather, it normalizes such violences to spectators over time. Additionally, exposure to state violence disempowers and makes most people feel afraid (see: Telemundo and Univision); even when such footage agitates our people, such rage is only short-lived.

Communications has to transition out of social media platforms. Constant posting only contributes to overstimulation, addiction to real-time doom-scrolling, monopoly over our time onto screens, and dependence on our enemies’ infrastructures. It is only a matter of time until all of our pages get nuked by Meta, or get used as “evidence” against individuals in the court of law: in place of socials, we can learn to depend on nearby neighbors and autonomous comms for crucial info.

Hyper-visibility is a serious error: the federal repression of leaders from Centro CSO and Raza Unida Party indicate targeting of highly visible members of organizations, regardless of whether or not they engaged in serious crimes; at this juncture, refusing to become anonymous is a gamble because visibility makes you an easier target: state repression is a drain on our movement’s resources and a major stressor for organizers. To have a fighting chance against the kidnappers, become undetectable.

LOOKING FORWARD
For the movement against ICE to transition into a real force, it can’t limit itself to just abolishing ICE. ‘Fuck ICE’ has to evolve to ‘Fuck the State!’ In a phrase: For ICE to burn, we must set fire to U.S. empire. On a practical level, local police and military forces would likely uptake deportation if ICE enforcement were to be immobilized. As long as American government reigns on these indigenous lands, the territory will always be susceptible to the encroachments of fascistic white power. ‘Fuck ICE’ means unsettling all colonial powers and institutions.

ICE is not an isolated issue that can simply be “addressed” without recognizing its entanglement with cuts to social spending, higher taxation, the increasing costs of living, tech/AI dystopia, the genocide in Palestine—in a word: capitalism. ICE’s targeting of informal markets and street vendors speaks to its function of creating a larger, expendable “surplus population.” The moment asks not just for abolition of ICE, but for abolition of the society that enables the possibility of ICE—the abolition of the capitalist social relation, and the re-construction of all of society.

Against the liberal slogan decrying that ‘No one is illegal on stolen land,’ we must proclaim its opposite: being legal is the problem, being a citizen of the state is the root-cause of this situation. Citizenship is key to the state’s apparatus of capture, foreclosing possibility of escape. The consequence: the citizen becomes the prisoner of the state, of the institution of citizenship itself. To be legal is to be entirely obedient to the structure of law and order—however, liberation undeniably resides in the space fomented by ‘illegal,’ subversive resistance. The present impasse asks this of us: ‘Become illegal on unceded land.’

NOPALITO ENOJADO CALLING OUT YOUR TIO:

“Hey you. Yeah you. I saw that. I know you did too. Your tio is out here telling protesters they deserved to get hurt. He’s out here telling your neighbor he should have done things “the right way.” Yeah I saw that comment. Fucking nopal en la frente ass tio. Oh wait, was that my tio? You know who I’m talking about? The ass holes in our family who think their domestic violence committing asses are morally superior. The ones who wanna be white so bad they’ll throw loved ones under the bus. Yeah, stop being nice to that guy. Support his wife in her attempts to leave him. Key funny shit on his car. Convince grandma to write him out of the will. Sneak revolutionary texts into his porn stash. Teach his kids about Zapata. lol, punch him. I don’t know, dude, do something. I will too.”

BRIDGING TOWARDS ABOLITION

“The diffuse network is the image of singular situations, productive and concrete forms of appropriating the world, of creating it, knowing that there are as many struggles, modes of existence and points of view, as situational experiments can be assumed. The diffuse network consists in the possible resonances between these situations.” — Colectivo Situaciones, “19 & 20”

OUR PROPOSAL:

For community to create intentional projects and initiatives that are able to coalesce within a wider network, creating the conditions for an alignment rooted in autonomous principles and tactics. Additionally, networks can function as organizing hubs for ‘bridge’ actions.

WHY NETWORKS?

The network organizing model is rooted in affinity and free association, which is more resilient than a top-down organization based on formal membership and bureaucratic formulas. A network is safer, allowing for relations built on trust and vouching, whereas the hierarchical structures of mass organizations allows for easier infiltration and repression by bad actors. The network’s aim is to congregate affinity groups and collectives consistently in an assembly forum, to create an autonomous organizing hub in order to align goals and tactics towards effective disruption. You can read up on an example how to create a formidable network here.

WHY ‘BRIDGE’ ACTIONS?

It’s unrealistic that predictable rallies or rapid response will melt ICE; it’s also difficult to replicate the burning of a police precinct like in 2020. ‘Bridge’ actions function as stepping stones for our movement: these help the resistance move from ‘Point A’ to ‘Point B,’ by taking intermediate-level actions. Through networks, groups can coalese around practical problems confronting the growth and spread of the resistance: ‘bridge’ actions allow communities to identify effective interventions and exercise autonomous power. One example of a ‘bridge’ action is an ICE office building occupation: folks can converge at the occupation, and through network organizing, can assemble and choose other targets or escalatory measures. Other examples include low-risk activities such as flyer bombing, guerrilla street performances, temporary occupations: any actions that are a quick ‘in-n-out’ and that empower and embolden us.

IDENTIFYING CHOKEPOINTS

ICE aspires towards a sickening “Amazon Prime of deportation.” A large percentage of new federal funding for ICE will be going towards its transportation costs. Any movement serious about stopping ICE must prepare for confrontations centered around blocking and destroying their logistic operations. Beyond the predictable protests or rapid response, ICE operations can be melted at its most vulnerable points: freeways and airports.

“Since the June raids began, nearly 70% of deportation-related flights out of the L.A. region have originated out of the Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, near the Adelanto ICE Processing Center. ‘ICE field offices coordinate with ICE Air Operations, headquartered in Mesa, Ariz., to arrange removal travel and domestic transfers, which are conducted using both commercial airlines and ICE Air charter aircraft,’ the spokesperson said in an email. Since June 6, a quarter of the flights have gone directly to nearby Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. About a fifth of flights head to El Paso, where the Mexican Consulate told The Times that some seized in L.A. are being detained.” (LA Times, “ICE flights out of L.A. area more than doubled in the last month”)

IDENTIFY AND DESTROY

Map of Adelanto location relative to LA region

los angeles to adelanto = 60 miles; 34°35’50”N 117°25’58”W; arid high desert landscape; low density, pop = 38,000

Map of City of Adelanto Deportation Infrastructure

BLUE CROSSES = locations of complices to ICE’s ethnic cleansing: occupy, sabotage, and/or shutdown

RED CROSSES = possible blockade intersection choke points to stop flow of deportations: 

COMMUNITY RESOURCES AGAINST ICE

Many of these projects are done by people like you and me. Sometimes with minimal resources. Sometimes with a team of just two or three. If you want to start something in your community, you can! Talk to your friends, talk to your neighbors. Think about what you can offer and find out what the people around you need. Community organizing is how we protect ourselves and how we thrive.

grocery funds & distros:

• 909MutualAid collecting funds to distribute free groceries through Pomona and surrounding areas. contact via IG @909MutualAid
• TODEC Perris Grocery Distribution: Provides free groceries for families affected by recent immigration operations. Schedule a distribution by calling (951) 943-1955   – they also provide immediate relief for affected farmworkers in the Inland Empire & Coachella Valley
• Aqui Para La Comunidad: Delivers and fundraises for groceries of affected families in Riverside, contact @aquiparalacomunidad on Instagram                                                                                                     
• Rancho Cucamonga Grocery distribution: fundraises to deliver groceries to families affected by immigration raids. Contact them on instagram @wekeep.us.safe.ranchocucamonga     

funds collection:

• IE Relief Fund: grassroots collaborative collecting funds to give directly to day laborers and families affected by ice raids. support, donate, or ask for help on ig @ierelieffund or email ierelieffund@proton.me
• Power to the High Desert Street Vendor Buyout: High Desert community members fundraising to give money directly to local street vendors. Contact via IG @powertothehd
• Brown Berets Street Vendor Support: provides funds to local street vendors to help protect during ice raids. Contact on instagram @iebrownberets

Community Migra Watch on IG:

• @fontana.decolonized                            
• @corona_we_keep_us_safe_1312                            
• @wekeep.us.safe.ranchocucamonga                            
• @we_keep_us_safe_1312 (Riverside & Jurupa Valley)            
• @sanbernardino.we_defend_us                            
• @peopledefendmou (montclair/ontario/upland)                            
• @iceoutofpomona                            
• @weprotectpomona                            
• @powertothehd                            
• @stayalert_morenovalley_perris                           
• @i.c.e_breakers951 (san jacinto & hemet)                            

Other Local Supports:

• Saw ICE? Call here to report: (909) 361-4588
• Want to kick ICE out of local hotels? Call the No Sleep for ICE Hotline: (888) 624-4752
• IC4IJ: Community-led resource hotline supporting immigrant communities with medical, legal, housing assistance and immigrant rights information -(909)474-9996
• San Bernardino Community Service Center: Resource providing free and low-cost legal services to immigrant communities throughout the Inland Empire – For more information, call (909) 885-1992
• Pomona Economic Opportunity Center: Organization aiming to provide resources and legal support to immigrant day laborers (909) 397-4215

broader services:

• Move immigration hearings to virtual (and avoid going in person): 888-462-5211 *available in English & Spanish
• Rapid response legal resource hotline (Immigrant Defenders Law Center)
• American friends service committee booklet

No peace for fascists:

A journalist effort allegedly leaking i c e agent info: https://icelist.is/ [note: VPN set up and/or a Tor/Mullvad Browser is highly recommended for use before searching/entering that web link]

Build a safety network: 

• 1. Collect your documents: Federal IDs, State/Local IDs, Birth Certificate, Proof of Residency
• 2. Connect your people: friends and fam in a signal group chat
• 3. Assign Roles: communicator (head of phone tree), legal liaison, family/home care liaison, financial liaison 
• 4. Communicate role assignments

How to start a Community Defense Center in your neighborhood

by LA Tenants Union

Protect/patrol locations where people are likely to be targeted. Create a sustained & visible presence in our neighborhoods. Centralize resources like legal help, medical help, groceries, and more.

STEP 1: CHOOSE A LOCATION
The location of your Community Defense Center should be somewhere that is likely to be targeted by ICE. identify places in your neighborhood where laborers, vendors, or other vulnerable people gather, such as: home depot/lowes, swap meets, sidewalk workers/vendors. Once you’ve selected a location that makes sense, take note of other vulnerable sites nearby, like churches, car washes, or vendor hubs. This will help you develop strategic patrol routes once you launch your center.

STEP 2: Do Community Outreach
It’s important to make sure that there is a strong sense of trust between the people manning your center and the community surrounding it. If you don’t already know the people in the area, spend a day or two doing outreach so that you can find out what people are seeing or experiencing, and share the goals of the Community Defense Center. If people are comfortable with it, consider adding them to a group chat, so that you have an easy way to share verified alerts with them once you start conducting patrols. You might also do outreach to other local organizations that could collaborate with you in the coming weeks, such as mutual aid groups or workers’ centers.

STEP 3: GATHER YOUR SUPPLIES
Print out: red cards, flyers with your local rapid response hotline information about how to identify ICE, resources for legal help signup sheets for food and grocery distributions. And any other info you want to share. You’ll also need to build your center. We suggest starting with: tarp, chairs, water, snacks, sunscreen, BANNERS, a hot spot FOR people who work from home, Walkie-talkies for patrols

STEP 4: OUTLINE VOLUNTEER ROLES
Foot patrols groups of 3-5 people walkING around scanning for ICE activity in the neighborhood. YOU CAN provide them with flags or another visible signifier, so people recognize them as part of the center.
Car/bike patrols: Teams that make larger sweeps of the neighborhoods & can quickly dispatch to investigate reports of ICE in the surrounding area. 
Outreach/flyering teams: Small groups that canvass the neighborhood sharing info about how to report ICE, explaining the goals of the center, & adding people to the local alert chat.
Tabling teams: Volunteers at the main center, keeping watch & sharing resources with passer-byS, monitorING social media for reports of ICE activity, foldING zines, & callING hotels where ICE is staying to complain.
Lookouts: teams posted on street corners surrounding the site. If THE area has multiple entrances, like a Home Depot, you will want to make sure that there is someone posted up near each one.

STEP 5: Develop a plan 
Discuss with your team and community WHAT you should do if an ICE raid happens. It’s good to have a plan for where people can enter, exit, or seek safety during an immediate raid, but also what people should do if ICE is spotted in the nearby vicinity. You can also develop a plan for what to do if other outside agitators show up. Write down your plan so you can share it with volunteers as they join you. 

STEP 6: Launch Your Center!
Now it’s time to make a call out to volunteers, and launch your center! As you continue to build relationships with each other & the surrounding community, you can further adjust your plan ON how to best protect the neighborhood, how to respond to a raid, and what resources you can provide.

While there is no cookie-cutter version of this that will work for every community, we hope this provides a helpful guidebook for how you can begin to protect your neighbors and make it as difficult as possible for ICE to continue terrorizing our communities. 

NO PEACE FOR FASCISM

“Seek justice from tyrannical governments not with your hat in your hands, but with a rifle in your fist.” — Emiliano Zapata

In mid June, major protests erupted across the Inland Empire in response to the mass kidnappings led by ICE. Unsurprisingly, this came with attention from local far-right groups who took the opportunity to harass the community. One such fascist went so far as to drive his car into protestors, severely injuring 21 year old Alexa Carrasco. Following a separate march, a fascist was found armed and heading toward the protest. While the latter situation did not amount to more, it does speak to the lengths to which fascist trash is willing (and often able) to go in our community. This comes in the wake of events such as the Salt Lake City murder of Afa Ah Loo and the shooting and arrest of Arturo Gamboa, protesters whose wounds were a result of shots fired by “peacekeepers” brought in by 50501, the organization that led the No Kings protests, and is known for its Zionist ties. These issues highlight the fallacy of “peaceful protests” and how liberal notions of “peace” are extensions of state violence. All these instances occurred in contexts where protesters were supervised and asked to follow city orders. Mass protests that collaborate with the police contribute to the work of the state, as they suppress crucial confrontation with violent enemies, ultimately allowing fascists to walk away knowing any direct response to their actions will be scrutinized. The beauty and power of mass protest on major IE streets, while important, must also be given space to flourish in ways that protect and empower our communities, by any means necessary. When we do not confront our enemies — those who kidnap and kill relentlessly — with severity, we allow them to walk away. When we choose the path of the “peaceful” protest, we put our community at risk of fascists who laugh at our peace. We police each other and ultimately cause more harm by criminalizing our own and protecting the enemy. Every time that we let a fascist know that we bow to the police, we give them power over us. Every time we ask the state for permission to protest, we tell our enemies we are submissive. Every time we tell a fellow protester how to act, we are inviting fascist violence. There is no peaceful response to a war that they created. The best way to protect each other is to acknowledge that there is nothing we can do that will cause more harm than that which the state and its followers are doing. It is our duty be fierce, threatening, and ungovernable. If we want our community to be able to congregate safely, we must make fascists afraid.

Image by Irina Crisis (2012)

Irina Crisis was born and raised in Mexico City, the city of chaos. The daughter of hippie communists, she learned the meanings of crisis and struggle at a very early age. She became an anarchist when she was 15, idolizing Spanish Civil War exiles and anarcho-punks as role models. She went to art school at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), where she participated in the longest student strike in Latin America. She has taken pictures, designed posters, banners, and fliers for countless demonstrations, protests, and summits. She has marched, graffitied, agitated, and barricaded next to her comrades in the streets of the U.S., Chile, Spain, Mexico, Greece, Germany, Argentina, the UK, Palestine, and Egypt. Crisis’ piece “With or Without Papers, We Will Always Be Illegal” is about being an immigrant. “Being an immigrant means to be brave enough to dare, to risk our lives, to risk our freedom, to make substantial changes, to fight for the choices we made,” Crisis said. “Struggle doesn’t need permission, doesn’t need a license, doesn’t need their laws. This poster is for all those who dare every day.” (taken from the Justseeds website)

New Original Zine Alert:

“We Are All Illegal: An Intro to Brown Anarchy”

Years in the making, this zine provides an introduction to the topic of anarchy, and its potential for brown communities in search of justice and freedom. Readers are offered a glimpse into everyday anarchisms, to enable new ways of assembling & resisting. Find an online and print-ready PDF version of the zine on our website (see QR code below). On Spotify, you can tune in to the Xicana Tiahui podcast for an in-depth reading & discussion with the author to unpack its relevance. Check it at the green link above!

DEATH TO ICE!
DEATH TO U.S. EMPIRE!
LONG LIVE ALL MIGRANTS!