We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - How to Protect Kids from ICE

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

438. How to Protect Kids from ICE Right now in America, children are standing alone in immigration court—no lawyer, no advocate, no protection—forced to represent themselves against government attorneys from Homeland Security. Glennon joins immigration justice leaders Lillian Aponte Miranda of the Florence Project and Shaina Aber of the Acacia Center for Justice to reveal what’s happening to immigrant families—and how we can meet this moment with care and action to protect children from ICE. To donate to the entire network of legal service providers serving unaccompanied immigrant children or to find an organization near you, visit protectimmigrantkids.org.  To volunteer as a Witness for Justice: VOMO To uplift on your social media platforms: #ProtectKids Toolkit - Google Docs The Florence Project provides free legal services, social services, and advocacy to immigrants facing detention and potential deportation.  To learn more about the Florence Project's work, visit: www.firrp.org and follow them on social media: Instagram: @The_FlorenceProject  Facebook: Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project The Acacia Center for Justice builds, strengthens, and expands immigrant legal defense programs for adults and children across the country. To learn more about the Acacia Center for Justice’s work, visit:  https://acaciajustice.org/  and follow them on social media:  Instagram: @acaciajustice Facebook: Acacia Center for Justice To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. As always, thank you. Just thank you for doing life with us, for doing this American moment with us. Thank you. Today, we're sharing with you a beautiful and important conversation I had with two of my personal heroes, Shana Aber, from the Acacia Center for Justice, and Lillian Aponte Miranda, from the Thuranda, from the Florence Project. We recorded this together as a virtual gathering where thousands of us came together

to learn how to better care for each other in this moment. We talked about the relentless cruelty so many immigrant children and families are facing and how love and justice are the unstoppable river that we can harness together to help protect each other and our neighbors in this moment. Shana and Lillian will guide us into the work of immigrant justice, how each of us can get in the boat, take our place, and help move toward collective liberation. And more importantly in this moment, how the hell we protect the kids and our neighbors from ICE. The Acacia Center is preparing to launch Witness for Justice this September, a project we discuss in this episode. In the show notes, you'll find everything you need to get involved, where to sign up for the volunteer hub,

links to follow the Florence Project in the Acacia Center, and resources to connect with immigration rights organizations in your own community. If you ever wanted to know what you would have done during the civil rights movement, it's what you're doing now. Here's a way to start. I'm Graham Allard. I'm the communications manager here at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project based in Phoenix, Arizona and Tucson, Arizona. Thank you so much for joining us. I am going to introduce our wonderful panelists here with us today. To start, we have Shane Aber. Shana is the executive director of the Acacia Center for Justice. She oversees national immigration-focused initiatives dedicated to providing legal defense, representation,

and meaningful access to justice to people in immigration proceedings. Lillianne-Moranda is the executive director of the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, an organization which provides free legal and social services to people facing deportation in Arizona. And finally, Glennon Doyle is a mother, sister, partner, activist, the author of Untamed, and host of the podcast, we can do hard things. And I'm going to hand it off to you, Glenn, and to get us started. Thank you, Greer. Hi, everybody. So grateful that you are here. And before we jump in, I would like to make a quick case for hope. My sister always reminds me that hopelessness results not from being in terrible circumstances, but from being in terrible circumstances and

believing that no one cares. When Shana and Greer and Lillian and I planned this, we thought maybe 100 people would show up. Thousands of you stopped your busy lives to gather here together to find out how to care for each other better. So thank you for giving me and Lillian and Shana and Greer and each other so much hope. today. I'm deeply grateful. Needed it. Because I have spent the last six months just each and every day cycling through rage and fear and exhaustion, each and every day struggling with the thought, how do we resist this onslaught of cruelty from this administration? And then recently I was reading an essay written by Michelle Alexander during the first Trump administration.

and she said in that essay that we are not the resistance that freedom equality and peace and justice this human progress this is just the energy of the world of life of life kind of longing for itself that this is just the way of things love is just the way of things and in every generation there are those that try to stop that flow to stop the way of things like a man-made damn tries to stop an ancient unstoppable river. But the dam builders are the resistance, right? We, those on the side of love and freedom, we don't have to resist.

We just have to harness the power of the river. So here's how I've been thinking about how we harness the power of the river. And I want to be careful to say, please don't blame this next part on Michelle Alexander. This next cheesy metaphor is just mine. Okay. All right, so I want you to picture the river of love

and freedom and justice. And now picture that there is a fleet of ships on the river. Okay? This is the freedom fleet. And the ships in this fleet have many different names. We've got a ship called Healthcare for All. We've got LGBTQ rights. We've got Black liberation.

We've got protect higher ed. We've got free Palestine. We've got immigration justice, reproductive freedom, protect the planet. We've got beautiful ship after beautiful ship on and on. in this fleet. Every American right now is a freedom fleeter, a dam builder, or a shore standard. To join the freedom fleet, this is what we do. We identify a cause tied to collective liberation, and we find a captain of that cause, a person who has been in this fight day in and day out, not just in dumpster fire years, but all the time. Okay, we ask permission.

to come aboard. Then we become a humble deckhand. We trust our captains. We trust our fellow crew members and we get to work. But the thing is, not just that we work, but how we work. Our goal as freedom fleeters is to gain so much power that we break through that dam once again. And the only way we do that is if we get as many sure standards as possible into our ships. because most of America is made up of shorestanders, right? And so to get them in the fleet, we in the fleet must become what Tony K. Bambara called the irresistible revolution. We become irresistible when in our ship we not only educate and organized and protest and boycott,

but we also laugh and dance and hug and love each other well. When other ships in the fleet come near, we love them well. too. We don't yell at them for being in a different ship. We need them in their ship and they need us in ours. So we remember many ships, one fleet. All our freedom fleet ships are heading in the same direction to collective liberation. So the only thing we yell at other ships is hell yes, keep going. Do you need any snacks? And when shorestanders do jump in because we're so irresistible, when they become new crew members, we welcome them with patience and love and celebration, we don't yell at them for not knowing things that we just learned six minutes

ago. Because when we in the ships finally embody the love of the river, no damn will stop us. In the Freedom Fleet, there is a ship called Immigration Justice, and two of the captains of that ship are Lillian and Shana. They are my captains, and I trust them with my entire heart and soul. As you will see today, they are absolutely irresistible, and they are going to show us today how we take our place in the joyful, beautiful freedom fleet that has been sailing toward collective liberation since the beginning of time. Captain Shana, take it away. Thank you, Glyn. It is a joy to be here with so many people who care today. And I have to say, I have faced moments of despair during the last six months. The first three months, I just walked

around feeling wounded and I wasn't caring for myself very well and I wasn't getting good sleep and I have two little kids to care for along with all of the legal service providers in our network and all of the staff who I'm holding space for on a daily basis through this moment of uncertainty and fear. And I will say that in a real moment of despair in March after the funding for legal representation, for friend of court, for placing volunteer attorneys with unaccompanied kids, was canceled by the government. I really turned to my dad, and my dad has been gone. He is not present on this earth for the last 22 years. And I thought about him, and I thought about the lessons he taught me about social movements and his own role as a

deckhand in the civil rights movement. My dad was born in 1943, and one of his first real memories of what inspired him as a northern Jewish kid in Queens, New York, to join the civil rights movement was the lynching of Emmett Till. He was only three years older than my dad when he was lynched. At the same time as that lynching, that really shocked the nation, there were raids going on in communities from Chicago to New York

of not just immigrants, but actually native-born citizens of the U.S. who were rounded up by the U.S. government and dumped on the other side of the border in Mexico simply for being of Mexican descent. The 1950s was a grim time for civil rights. But out of that came a national movement

to restore the promise of our Constitution. And in 1964, as my dad graduated from college, he was called along with 1,000 other youth, mostly northern, mostly white, to a boot camp, so to speak, in Ohio that was run by Ella Baker and the leaders of the student nonviolent coordinating committee by the Black Churches and Leadership Conference to go down to Mississippi in 1964 and participate in helping to register black farm workers, sharecroppers, to vote. But part of that training that they received at the time was not just accompanying people to the polls, not just teaching people

how to pass these, you know, ridiculous poll tests. But it was also documenting. It was documenting and storytelling and writing to their communities, their pastors, their rabbis, their teachers, their friends, their family members. The arbitrary arrest, the beatings, the deprivings, the deprivation, of rights, the lynchings that were going on in the south of the time, simply because people did not want the voices of black Americans to be heard. They didn't want them to stand up and be counted. And out of that summer, out of these young leaders, you know, really telling the story of what they were seeing to their communities back home, came a national reckoning. And in 1916, when Congress came back to session, we got the Voting Rights Act.

1965, we got one of the most dramatic immigration reforms that dispensed of the race-based quota system that had typified our immigration system up until that moment. And it really gave wings to the hope that our country can be a more perfect union. And so I draw on those lessons as I'm thinking about this historic moment, which is not just about despair. It is about hope. It is about community. It is about leaning in to our values, to our constitutional freedoms, and recapturing and amplifying our sense of humanity and justice, especially now in a time when the narrative arc of those in power is telling us that safety requires. performative cruelty and dispossession.

I think about those young leaders who were trained in accompanying communities to the polls and in telling the stories of what they were witnessing. I think about my grandma, who was terrified for my dad. He was arrested multiple times that summer. He was brutalized.

I think about her organizing the support group of moms and queens whose family members, whose kids were down in the South during this really disheartening time and scary time. And I think about the three young civil rights workers who were murdered that summer through collusion between local law enforcement and the Klan and how that changed the conversation,

how it was a tipping point. And I think about this community, Glennon, that you're building of people of heart of people who believe in justice. And it gives me hope. And that's what we're here to talk about today. How to give each other hope, how to show up for each other in this moment. Hey, it's Jill Schlesinger, CBS News Business Analyst, Certified Financial Planner,

and host of the podcast, Money Watch with Jill Schlesinger. It's a show where we answer your questions about your money, from investing to retirement and completing your taxes. I'll be your financial coach and help take the stress out of managing your money. Plus, we might even have a little fun along the way. Follow and listen to Money Watch with Jill Schlesinger on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm going to pass it on to Lillian. Hi, everyone. I just want to say that I am so incredibly grateful to be here.

And I am so encouraged by being here with Glennon, by being here with Shana, and by being here with all of you. Thank you so much for showing up today. I met Glennon four months ago. It seems like we've known each other a lifetime, but I met her four months ago. And it was when she came to a webinar, not unlike the one that you are in right now. And she was moved to act in the beautiful way that Glennon takes action with authenticity, with heart, with trust. And I remember one thing that she said to me shortly after that, and I'm going to tell you exactly what she said, because I remember sitting at my kitchen table, and I just remember being so comforted in that moment. And she said, my goal is that you and your colleagues feel.

that while you are sitting beside children who are alone, you have thousands of us sitting with you. You really do, and people care about this. And it was such a message of deep community, of deep commitment, and I remember just being so incredibly overcome by it. And I just want to say that to you too today. We are not alone in this.

And that's why we are here gathered in community today. And whether you have been here in the immigration justice movement for years or whether this is the first times that you've come into a space where immigration justice is being discussed, I just want to welcome you. And thank you for being here right now. So as we're gathering to meet this moment with hope, what does it look like to be in a community of care and action. And to us right now, it means three things. It means that we are willing to learn together. And that's part of what we're going to be doing today. We're willing to stand in solidarity

with each other, with impacted communities, and with a broader immigration justice movement, we are a piece in a much broader landscape of the ways in which immigration use justice moves in our country and led by so many people who care. And we are going to take action because that's what's needed at this time. We need to understand the urgency of the moment and be moved to whack in the ways that are true to each of us. And we're also going to stay human while we do it because while we don't look away, we get to experience our full humanity. And that includes joy, that includes compassion, that includes grief, that includes resolve, it all belongs. And so I am grateful to be here with all of you in this community.

and to stay human while we are in community together. Okay, so Sheena and Lillian, I think that we're going to do now is get into some questions that people might have. The first question, which is just a real quick one, Lily, and you can just nail it fast for us. Why are we here? What's going on? And why does it matter? You have 30 seconds. Here we go.

Thanks, Glennon. And I'm just going to say it as plainly as I can. We are here because this administration is targeting immigrant children. And we are seeing this in the Florence Project on the work that we do on the ground. And so are the sister organizations around the country who do this work day in and day out. And here is what's happening. And some of you are also seeing this in your own communities with your own eyes, in your own neighborhoods. What we are seeing are ice rates that are targeting immigrant families.

families and are tearing children apart from their parents and their caretakers and their loved ones. And what happens in situations where in an ice raid, a parent or a caretaker may be apprehended by ice and taken is that a child may be left behind and you may be wondering, well, what happens to that child? What we're seeing on the ground is that for some children, they are being placed back in immigration shelter detention. There is a system of immigration shelter detention systems across the country. And if a child is left alone and is rendered essentially unaccompanied by virtue of their parent or eagle guardian being taken and they're in removal proceedings, they are placed back into an immigration shelter detention system. And what happens to a

child rendered place in an immigration shelter, the detention system is that they face the immigration system essentially alone. And they are faced without having the security of a loved one or a trusted adult to help navigate that for them. The second thing that we are seeing is that children who are in shelter immigration detention are spending longer and longer periods of time in detention. And that their reunification with people, Parents or family members who are here in the United States is being delayed. So that means that children are spending months and months and months in detention. So when the child is placed in a shelter immigration detention center, they have a right to be reunified and place in the least restrictive setting.

But what is happening is that this administration is creating new requirements that essentially are functionally as a form of family separation by other means. needs. And what that looks like is requiring potential family members who could receive a child to submit to really, you know, sometimes undoable and impossible requirements, like being able to get a state issued ID or being able to show a particular form of proof of income or even being subject to a DNA test. And so what that looks like in reality are children who are alone in immigration detention centers who have a potential parent or family member here in the community with whom they have the right to be reunified. And what these new requirements are doing is that they are essentially systematically creating obstacles for children to be with their loved ones

and their families. And then the third thing that we are seeing is that for children who are in immigration shelter detention centers and who are there alone, they are being essentially fast-stract. through their court immigration processes. So when a child is in an immigration shelter detention center, they are required to go to court and to, in a sense, answer to a charge of being here without authorization. And they have a claim and they have a right to a meaningful day in court. But what's happening right now is that court is being sped up.

And so children are being forced to go to court without the ability to even understand what's happening, without being able to find me. meaningful representation. And so something that's really important for people to know is that there is no public defender system for people who face immigration removal proceedings, deportation. So that means that if someone can't essentially afford an attorney, they may be left to face immigration court. And that can be one-year-old child, that can be a two-year-old child, that can be a five-year-old

child. And so what's happening right now is that the decades-long legal funding that had been there in order to be able to provide this type of support and advocacy and assistance to children in court has essentially been nearly terminated and continues to be under threat. And so what that means is that what children face is sitting at a courtroom, in a table, by themselves, going up against a trained government prosecutor, facing the full force of the U.S. government alone. That is what that would look like. And so when we see the scope and totality of what's happening, we have to ask ourselves, what is it ours to do now? And we can't wait. And I'm going to turn it to Sheena, who's going to talk a little bit about what it means for this national network of legal services provider who has been here for decades to provide these services, to face the possibility of no longer being the eyes and ears on the ground and no longer being able to provide the needed critical services for children to be able to have protection, safety, in a fair day in court.

Thanks for Leanne. Yeah. So just backing up a little bit, this network that has now grown to over 130 organizations throughout the country began as a pilot in 2005 under the Bush administration, and it has been supported on a bipartisan basis to protect children's legal rights and to protect their ability to understand their options as part of the government's understanding of its obligation to provide children with legal representation to the greatest extent practicable. Since March, this legal obligation has been under threat,

and tens of thousands of children stand to lose their legal representatives, even as the government continues to fight to completely annihilate this safeguard, appealing a court injunction that require them to restore services, to continue to meet their due process obligations to unaccompetions. children. And even as children and their caregivers and family members are being targeted in increasingly arbitrary detention operations. I'm sure that you've seen the news stories about kids, families being picked up at immigration court. Recently, one of the fired immigration judges explained that she was being told how to rule on motions. The immigration justice system

has now been completely turned on its head. It has been compromised. It lacks the independence that you would expect of an immigration judiciary system. So as families are being separated and new children are being rendered unaccompanied and fast-tracked for deportation, as Lillian just explained.

Our obligation at Acacia is to sustain this field. And we really invite you also to walk with us in this process. The lawyers and legal teams doing this work, I see them on a daily basis using their own humanity as a shield against this onslaught of dehumanization. In protecting the rights of our immigrant communities, in protecting children from harm and arbitrary due process deprivations, friends, we are also protecting our democracy and the rights of everyone in this country.

That's right. Okay, so Lillian and Shana, we all know that when we try to make arguments for humanity, there are a handful of things that are said as little phrases that try to shut it down. So, for example, here's one. Well, why are these kids alone? What kinds of parents send their children by themselves? aren't these just bad parents? Can you all talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I really do want to talk a little bit about that because I know that for a lot of people,

this may be the first time or even, you know, one of the first experiences that they have with even knowing that there may be children who are arriving to the United States alone or that because of a separation that happened on their journey or because of an ICE raid, they are now truly alone in immigration, sheltered detention centers across the country. And when I started my work at the Florence Project, I actually started as a volunteer attorney. And it was because there have been a call to action in the community in need of attorneys to provide representation for unaccompanied children. And then I went on to become a staff attorney in our children's program.

And this is what I know from the work I myself have done and from the work that our staff does and the work that our sister organizations do. And it's that when you see a child who is here, alone, something has gone terribly wrong. Something has gone terribly wrong. An impossible decision has been made. And there are multiple reasons why children would flee a home country and come here alone. We see children who are fleeing abandonment, who are fleeing abuse, who are fleeing neglect, who are making that very difficult decision to come to the United States seeking their well-being and safety. We are seeing children who are fleeing violence,

and who are fleeing persecution. And what's really sometimes difficult for us to know is that parents are faced sometimes with the impossible choice of looking to have their child survive and be safe and let go of the ability to be near and with their child. So I remember one of my first clients was actually a nine-year-old boy and I'm going to use the name Juan for him and I remember the first time I met Juan

he walked into our office he was wearing a Spider-Man shirt and we walked to one of the rooms where we were going to talk and when I asked him what had happened the first thing he said to me was well I just I cried I cried and I cried when I sat by to my grandfather

and he bought me chips and water and here's how that happened Juan lived in Guatemala with his siblings and he's part of an indigenous community in Guatemala and the family was struggling to have enough food to eat and they were living in community with the parents and the grandparents of the children and the parents made the really difficult decision to journey to the United States in order to be able to provide just basic nourishment for their children back home. And the children were made in the the care of their grandparents. And the grandparents were receiving help and assistance from the

parents who were here in the United States. And then one day, the grandfather was kidnapped and extorted for money because there was the idea that the grandfather had some money to give and that he was receiving money. And in the process of being kidnapped, he was physically, seriously harmed and disfigured. And the lives of his grandchildren were threatened. And so he made the very difficult and for him impossible decision to send his nine-year-old grandson along with his two barely older sisters and to say goodbye

and to do that with a very small luxury that was available to them which was to buy ships and water. And that's what one remembered and that was the first thing he told me when I asked him what had happened. And this is just one story of so many stories of lived experience

that children who make the journey here alone have shared with us. And so what I know is that oftentimes it is actually the driving force of love in a parent or a loved one or a caretaker that leads them to make the impossible choice to send a child to safety and say a painful goodbye. And so I know it's sometimes difficult to imagine what those circumstances could be and look like. But we certainly know that there are many children who have faced those difficult goodbyes too. Thank you, Lillian. Here's another question. Why don't they just come here? legally? Why can't they just do this legally and everything would be fine?

And let's talk a little bit about that too and really situate ourselves and what's happening also right now in the context of what our legal system actually provides and what's happening to our legal system, our immigration legal system right now. So the first thing I want to say just to ground us is that there are limited ways that individuals that people, that children and families can have authorized entry into the United States, and they're often complex, and they take years to complete. And so very generally speaking, that can look like applying for a specific visa category, or that can look like applying for a humanitarian form of protection, like refugee status from your home country or asylum, if you're here because

you fear persecution in your home country, feel danger to your life. And what's happening right now is that this administration is disrupting or even attempting wholesale to eliminate existing pathways in our legal system right now that offer people that process. And they are also targeting people who are complying with the process that has been required them. So let me give you some examples of that. So people have a right to seek asylum under our legal. system. And that's the right of a person to seek refuge, to seek safety, because they are facing persecution elsewhere. And both our domestic U.S. law and international human rights law protects the right of people to be able to seek asylum. And it's often a crucial

lifeline for people, for children and for families, because they're fleeing oftentimes life-threatening violence and harm. And this administration has sought to prevent asylum seekers from accessing the asylum process through what has now been found by a federal court to be an unlawful shutdown of asylum processing our southern border. We have organizational plaintiffs in the lawsuit that challenged this. And so we have to really take a look at the fact that there is an intentional and directed assault on even the pathways that exist right now. And then what we're also seeing is that people who are complying with the processes that

that then require them are being targeted. And that looks like people being arrested at courthouses when they're actually showing up for their immigration court hearings. That looks like people being arrested at their ICE check-ins when they are following the requirements for reporting to ICE. And that looks like people being coerced into leaving the country when they have a right to a fair day in court for their claim of being able to stay here to be properly and meaningfully adjudicated.

And this comes back to the point that Chena was making, which is that this is a blatant and intentional attack on the constitutional the process that's afforded to all in our country. And so when we talk about legality and what is happening right now is that it's being, in a sense, turned on its head. And what's happening is that the administration is bypassing our legal system. And so I just want to make sure that we understand and see that and that that's happening right now and the ways in which it's happening. And I also want to say that we are not beholden to what is our immigration legal system and we have both the capacity and the ability to reimagine an immigration legal system

that takes us a point of departure, a humane process of migration, immigration, border management, reception, we are capable of that. And so part of the task ahead of us too at a moment like this is to reimagine potentially what a different path looks like moving forward. I know that a lot of people, it boggles the mind, the idea of a child going through a legal process alone. And as Lillian said before, there is no federal public defender system. Up until this point, we've been able to represent every child going to pleadings while they are in custody. But we haven't been able to close the gap completely on the number of kids who once released from custody into loving, caring family settings have also, you know, needed that legal representation. Our network

provides representation both for kids in custody and once released from custody. However, after the pause in our funding and our ability to represent children in custody in March and April, we saw multiple children be pushed forward to pleadings, including a six-year-old boy who was taken away from his father. They were picked up in one of the first raids. He was placed into custody for four months, and the day before the government finally complied with the court injunction on their deprivation of these children's legal rights, he was deported to Guadourable. Mala. So yes, children who do not even understand a legal process, they don't necessarily even understand why they were sent to this country being forced to go through the immigration

proceedings alone, without a lawyer, without an advocate. And that is really what we have to stand up and fight against. And I know that you had the chance to see a court hearing recently and maybe you could share a little bit about what you saw. Yeah, it's interesting even though there's many, many articles we can read about this right now, even though this is just factually happening. There are still people again and again who say this is an exaggeration. This isn't really happening. This is hyperbole. It is not hyperbole. I went to court in Arizona recently to one of these rocket dockets where they're trying to speed children through. I think the question, why aren't they doing this legally is a good question. It's just pointed in the wrong direction. We need to ask

the administration why they're not doing this legally because these families and children have a right to asylum. They are going through the process and it is the administration who is disappearing people and not following due process. I saw in court a docket. There were maybe 10 children, maybe 12 children at that docket. All of them were under the age of 14. I saw a two or three-year-old boy, be brought in, be sat down at a table, just a courtroom like you see in TV, very intimidating, rows of seats with two tables, one with a Homeland Security lawyer, a big judge behind a seat with a robe, a court reporter, and then at the next table, the lawyer was at one table, at the other table was a two to three-year-old little boy, no lawyer. When I was there,

It was a moment where we were lucky enough that there was a friend of court sitting near him to kind of reach her hands out and kind of help. The little boy had earphones on because he didn't even speak the language being spoken in the court. The judge asked him repeatedly if he understood why he was there, if he understood deportation process, if he had a lawyer. The little boy just listened, shook his head. I saw, then the judge at the end, frustratedly said, you need to get yourself a lawyer. They took the three-year-old out. I saw a little group of three children.

The little girl looked like she was about six, two little brothers with her. She tried to lead her own hearing. She was trying to keep her two-year-old brother focused and it's just like she understood that they needed to pay attention. They were getting it translated. One thing I'll never forget is just watching it all just in shock. And the court reporter was a woman.

She kept leaving and coming back. And I felt very frustrated with her. I didn't understand why she kept leaving in the middle of this. It turned out she was leaving to go cry in the waiting room because she couldn't believe what was happening in that courtroom. She couldn't look at these children in the eye and continue. I kept thinking about how everyone had their humanity shut down. There's no way that a human being in that judge's body could look at this and be present with the cruelty.

So he dissociated by telling children that they should pay attention and that they just didn't understand and that they should get themselves lawyers. The court reporter dissociated by leaving the room. It was just unbelievable. But yeah, I saw it with my own eyes. The children are being required to represent themselves without any support, any love. They don't know where their families are. They don't know where they are. And also they have been alone in the detention center.

So that's another thing to note that without this funding, there are no advocates in the detention center. So they're sitting in these places with no one to protect them from neglect or abuse is hell. It was hell. And, you know, when we talked earlier about are these bad parents, it's just, if you are lucky enough to be a parent who cannot imagine having to make that decision, then that makes you a lucky parent, not a better parent.

And I think all the time about what if I were in that moment, what if I had to decide whether I was going to give up my time with my child during my one life with them in order to and I hope to God I would be brave enough to make that choice and if I did I hope to God there would be parents, grownups, adults in wherever I had to send them who would use their luck and privilege and power to parent my children. That's what I would pray for every night. I see so many questions in the chat in like what can we do. And I think we often ask ourselves this in times of historical injustice. That moment is now, but this isn't unprecedented, as I said before.

I think about what my father did during the civil rights movement and the power of storytelling and documenting. There's a book that I now keep on my desk because it inspires me every day. It's called Letters from Mississippi. It's where three of my dad's letters home are published and the accounts. of hundreds of other civil rights workers who were down in Mississippi that summer. And I think about the power of people engaging civically and bearing witness in the streets to protect their neighbors, holding ICE accountable for disappearances, but also I think about the courthouses, right? And these are public tribunals. They must be public tribunals. And I am

calling on you today to help us in a new initiative that we're partnering with organizations throughout the country on called Witness for Justice. I'm calling on you to join us in the courthouses in your communities. People who are trying to see their immigration cases through must not be disappeared. You can bear witness to what is happening in the courts. And so we're really excited to introduce Witness for Justice, which is this national initiative, currently in development at Acacia, rooted in the powerful mission of ensuring that no immigration court operates without public oversight. Witness for Justice is building a volunteer-powered movement. We're seeking to promote public accountability and transparency in the immigration courts,

raise awareness about the lack of judicial independence among immigration adjudicators, document due process violations and the politicization of proceedings. And we're seeking to amplify the stories, the voices of court observers to bring visibility and strength to these critical issues, the power of documenting what you have seen, whether it is in social media, whether it's through op-eds, whether it's letters to Congress, whether it's compiling letters. documenting what you have seen, much like this book did, letters from Mississippi. So as we wrap up this discussion today, this is, again, an invitation to join us in community to be part of the solution, be part of digging our way out of the really grim place that we're in today.

I just will say that it is very comforting to remember, as you're saying this, Shana, that this is not an unprecedented time. that we are just taking our place in what Shayna's dad was doing. We are going to be the ones who show up and witness because we know that there is no such thing as other people's children. So we're going to show up in these courtrooms outside of these courthouses as if those are our children because they are. And then we're going to tell the world what we saw. And that's how things change and always have, right? the witnesses, and then the speakers.

That's what we're going to become. Lillian, before we end, let's talk about what we can do while we wait. Because we're going to wait for Shana because we know you guys are our captains. And we are also going to not wait for Shana and Lillian because we need to become tiny irresistible revolutions in our communities, in our homes, in our places. So let's talk about how we do that. First, I just want to say thank you all so much, I know what I'm seeing in the chat that so many of you have questions about what can I do.

And we are inviting you into this moment of action, and we are so incredibly encouraged that you have shown up and that we will have this moment to really talk about how to bear witness and how to use our voices. And I'm so grateful to Sheena and the Acacia Center for creating this opportunity for us to activate around that. And there are multiple ways in which you in the community can take action now. the first thing that you can do is learn and stay informed and you are doing it right now. You did that. You're doing that today. And in the vein of continuing to learn and stay informed, please follow us. Please follow Acacia. Please follow your local immigrant rights organization in your own state. And we will send resources so that you can actually locate your immigrant rights organization and that you can learn also about what's happening in your own locality. Another thing that you can do is, answer and activate around calls to action. I know we have a call to action right now, and

Acacia has been leading this along with sister organizations to call our representatives and let them know that we need and want a restoration of the funding that is required and critical for children to be able to receive the legal services

that they need to have a fair process and day in court. And we also want to encourage all of you to look at your own gifts and talents, to look at what is yours and has been given to you as your own gift, as your own talent, as part of your own privilege,

and to use that to contribute to this moment and time. And so if you are an artist, do art, if you are a writer, write, use your voice and write, write an op-head, put your voice into the space. If you are someone who has a facility to build community around, even a small fundraiser in your community, a big sale, do it. It all matters.

It all absolutely counts. And it's not even just a process of, you know, obviously creating a sense of support and funding, but it's a people you're bringing together in what you are able to do in that moment to communicate with them and to raise awareness as well. Have your own family meetings. Have your own family meetings. I know this is such a difficult topic sometimes to raise, especially among our sacred faces of family and even with our own loved ones and even among our friends. But we want to say,

do it, do it, have your own family meetings. And we're also going to provide resources to you on what are these kinds of questions that we just talked about today and how to have these family meetings and conversations yourselves. If you are someone who is inclined to read and know more about the lived experience, obviously, of immigrant children, and you even are encouraged to maybe even put together an opportunity for reading a book. I recommend Solito, who is written by Javier Samora, and is based on his own lived experience coming to the United States as an unaccompanied child. And so I think what is really important for us to all take away

is that there is something that is ours to do, each and every single one of ours to do. And it's important right now that you ask yourself, what is that for you? What is that for you? And so we're going to keep coming and showing up and being community with all of you and creating and moving opportunities forward for all of us to collectively activate. And you are empowered. You are empowered to think about what that looks like for you in your own community right now. And so please feel supported. Please feel supported in that. And I know as you all are thinking about us, please know we are thinking about you.

And that's something that I want to share with you. A lot of times our staff and all the people that do this work every day, we think about you, all of the people out in the world right now who are supporting this moment and meeting this moment with their own heart, with their own talents, and with their own contributions. So thank you so much for thinking about us. And please know that we will also be thinking about you. State your own values.

I think that can be one of the most powerful things. Tell the world what you believe. Yeah. Sheena, didn't you say that some people are, tell us about the people going to schools. Yeah. So there's a local effort here in my community in Sacramento that it both breaks my heart, but is super inspiring to help kids to register for school. Their parents are afraid to leave their houses.

They're afraid to go to even, you know, a government institution, even though it's our local schools, to register their kids. And so they have people who are volunteering to accompany immigrant children to school to register so that they don't miss this critical education and support that they can get. We'll be sending you resources of groups that are volunteering in the community. But that's a really practical thing that really inspired me to hear about and to see, you know, former teachers and moms volunteering to. to do that work with the families that right now feel like they're trapped in their houses.

It's so interesting to me because I keep hearing people say people who I love and respect over and over again and I say this 12 times a day too is like I just feel like I'm going to lose my mind. That's like what keep people keep, I'm going to lose my mind. And I think it's so, and I just think that that is purposeful. I think it's because this is not, our minds are not going to fix this. like we are used to these little individual if we just think it right if we just reframe it if we just have the right take if we just that is this we've reached the end of that our minds won't fix it that's why when we show up with our bodies now when we surrender to like group when I the only place I feel safe or hopeful now right now is at

protest or at organizing because there's a surrender there to it's just like making peace with our bodies. How are we going out into the world and making peace with our bodies? And it doesn't have to be big, small is sometimes better. Because if you're asking yourself, does this little thing, this bake sale, this piece of art, will this matter? Will this change anything? That's not exactly the question. So I'm going to end to take us out here with this one story that no one wants to hear anymore because I tell it every four hours. But there was this guy during the Vietnam War who used to stand outside the White House every single day with a single candle. And eventually people caught on and the media stopped him one night, came to his little tiny one-person vigil and had to put a microphone in his face and said, sir, what are you doing here?

Like, do you actually think that you and your one little candle are going to change anything, are going to change this war, change this administration? And he said, oh, I don't come here every night to change them. I come here every night with my tiny little candle so that they don't change me. And what the end is of this is if we allow this dehumanization, this onslaught of trying to convince us that life doesn't matter,

if we allow ourselves to go numb, if we believe that it's over. And so we have to do these things not just to change power, but so that we don't stop remembering how precious and beautiful life is. So today, go do that. You did this hard work today. Whatever makes life worth living for you today, love, joy, food, sex, family, whatever it is, just fucking double down today, okay? We are going to hold on to our personal humanity so that we can continue to fight for our collective humanity. And this is how we can do it. We don't have to do it every day in rage and

fear and reactiveness. We can do it in community. We can do it in this like juicy, beautiful human way and we can walk each other home like this. So grateful that you all showed up today. So grateful. And I'm Shana and Lillian, I am so deeply grateful. grateful for you. Grateful for you, too. Likewise. It's a place of heart, and we need it now. Thank you, everyone, for being here with us.

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