By Emelina Rosa
On December 5, ICE agents carried out multi-agency raids on a popular local chain of taquerias in Tucson and throughout Southern Arizona, called Taco Giro, seizing documents and kidnapping 46 people. In response to one ongoing raid at a location within the city, community members gathered to witness, disrupt, and impede the kidnapping of their neighbors. When the ICE Special Response Team showed up, the protest quickly turned into a street battle, with tear gas canisters deployed by the agents and quickly thrown back at them, projectiles hurled, and at least two ICE vehicles damaged. Two protesters were arrested in the melee. Later that night, participants jumped back into action: calling for a street march and a protest at the local ICE office later that same night, as well as a community assembly for the following day to discuss how to organize and build their forces to more successfully oppose ICE next time. The following reportback documents the events of that weekend following the initial raid.
One. Asamblea comunitaria: This is where our politics are tested
After the street battles, when the smoke clears, this is when the work begins, in the space we open up by fighting. If we don’t work that opening now, it’s lost until the next time, and we’re still cycling through one potential point of rupture after another, wondering what to do in between. This is the moment for drawing folx together, for facing down the old world and building a new one in the here and now. We call ourselves insurrectionary but it is the time in between that matters, when the reigning commonsense is smashed through and anything is possible.
On December 6, the day after the raids, more than 200 people came together in a westside park on less than a day’s notice. It was a serious crowd and down to talk. There was no sign of PSL, Party for Socialism and Liberation, they were home signing people up for the party. We made the call, I’m proud of us for that, and we came together for the pre-meeting meeting to plan our interventions.
Anti-ICE protests open possibilities for continued engagement that the gaza encampments did not. Tucson is a Mexican city, it was once the most important town in Sonora; the west and south sides are still working class. Kidnapping people from homes and streets does more to bring folx together than a thousand leaflets: Tucson is ready to take a stand.
Unlike other rallies that were mostly speeches and programs, our assembly was nearly all breakout groups. We talked about what we could do, what kept us from acting, how we could come back together. We passed out a leaflet announcing the next assembly, a month in the future.
The moderator began with a prompt that set the day’s tone, inviting us all to speak with the few people next to us: howwould you want to show up to this fight? And if you aren’t doing that yet, what is in the way? It could be feelings of weakness, lack of organization, lack of support, or just fear. Be vulnerable and honest, naming these limits andconsidering how they could be overcome. That was a good beginning, respecting of people’s feelings, opening a space for reflection.
We came back together, and were asked to come up with action proposals. We had talked beforehand about what sort of proposals we wanted to see and agreed to raise them if no one else did. Then we scattered into breakout groups. I joined one of the largest, around neighborhood assemblies, led by a woman with many years going door-to-door in the barrio. Other groups focused on research, on skills-sharing, on supporting the families whose loved ones had been deported, on neighorhood patrols.
We came back together for another round of report-backs then broke into final small groups based on neighborhoods—north side to thenorth, west side here, etc. This would end the meeting. Our north side group was small, we exchanged numbers, and someone volunteered to make up a signal group. One of us had attended a local neighborhood association meeting that morning and thought it was open to anti-ICE organizing.
This is what it looks like to seize the moment. A lot of community work is providing a forum and then jusr showing up, supporting the leaders on the block, finding the ones who aren’t corrupt, or abusive, or planning their rise in the democratic party. Finding the adults who’ve been there awhile and still believe in getting folx together. Then figuring outwhich leaders will charge ahead and who will hold back and act as peacekeepers when things get rowdy and civility breaks down. In figuring this out, actions speak louder than words—it’s what people do that matters.
Engaging with folx you don’t know can be challenging, for some of us it requires a shift. I put on another personality that leads with a smile. Most of it is listening, don’t stress about what to say.
C.L.R. James said, Recognize and record. If we really believe that ordinary folx can govern—horizontally, collectively—then this is our moment. Make use of it.
Two. We need music y’all
I can’t speak to the morning raids, I did the training and signed up to go out as a first-timer with someone experienced but I had to cancel in favor of a zoom call and when I was ready, the action had shifted.
When we arrived at the ice field office, maybe fifteen people were there. A comrade had taken on the task of doing periodic temp checks, calling folx into a circle and discussing what to do. There was really nothing to do but mill around in front of a blank metal wall. There were two gates, we couldn’t block them both, and no one came through either one in the several hours we were there.
There were agents on the roof with weapons. People jeered at them, one person kept shouting about tiny dicks. I thought it was cringe and went on too long. There was a line of four men, some with sidearms, who called themselves community defenders and brown berets. They stood to the side and didn’t mix with us. There were reporters. Some folx went right up to the pedestrian gate, taunting the agents just inside, who finally let loose with a long plume of pepper spray in someone’s face. They stumbled back and were attended to by a medic with supplies. It was wild to see that plume in the air.
Someone made a sign that said, “When a stranger came, I fed him. Matthew 25.” That was the only sign. It was clear whywe were there; did we chant? All I remember is Chinga la migra, and Who are you protecting, who do you serve? A lot of us were in t-shirt masks, we looked like, what—anarchists? antifa? were we trying to? I was pleased that it was so hard to recognize friends, I looked at their feet and their posture.
We stood around feeling anxious and bored. We finally came together one last time and called it, my friends and comrades pounded on the steel gates, rattling and kicking, while I held back, then we walked away. More noise would have been cool. We need songs: “Ciao Bella Ciao” is a marching song. We need drums.
Three. The forced march
Late in the afternoon religious leaders called a vigil at the west side Taco Giro where the raids took place. We went and passed out fliers for the Assembly we called for the next day. It was cold, in the fifties.
Then there was a emergency protest at city hall downtown called by PSL, the Party for Socialism and Revolution. The PSL emerged from the splinters of older marxist-leninist groupings that came from the new left, a throwback to unhappy times.
We drove by city hall, there was a small crowd on the sidewalk but by the time we found parking, it was gone. We rushed to follow police lights ahead. A group of young people passed us running. The march was triple time, we finally caught up but the pace was too fast. I should have left when I saw it was moving, but I did keep up and kept my friends in view.
Were we marching until the walls fell? Young folx from the barrio set the pace, bless their hearts, showing they’re swole, but we needed leaders to take control and slow down. PSL should have controlled the pace. It was undignified, like being herded past the police with their flashing lights on every cross street, those lights were triggering. I tried to catch of glimpse of Mi General Pancho Villa as we rushed past the park between Congress and Broadway. There were more than a hundred of us by the end. We made a loop around downtown. The chants: No Justice, No Peace. Abolish Ice. Aquí estamos y no nos vamos. Migra, Policía, Misma porquería. Donald Trump, Let’s be clear, Immigrants are welcome here. And the eternal Chinga La Migra! We took both sides of the street. We needed a marching drum.
Bella ciao
The world is waking outside my window
Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
Drags my senses into the sunlight
For there are things that I must do
Wish me luck now, I have to leave you
Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
With my friends now up to the city
We're going to shake the Gates of Hell
And I will tell them - we will tell them
Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
That our sunlight is not for franchise
And wish the bastards drop down dead
Next time you see me I may be smiling
Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
I'll be in prison or on the TV
I'll say, "the sunlight dragged me here!"
La Marsellesa anarquista
Sung to the tune of La Marseillaise, the Partido Liberal Mexicano / Flores Magonistas sang this when they organized the borderlands early twentieth century, frequently alongside the Industrial Workers of the World.
A la revuelta, proletariado;
To the revolt, proletariat,
ya brilla el día de la redención
now shines the day of redemptionque
el sublime ideal libertario
may the sublime ideal of liberty
sea el norte de la rebelión,
be the north [star] of the rebellion
sea el norte de la rebelión.
be the north [star] of the rebellion.
Dignifiquemos del hombre la vida,
May we dignify life for man,
en un nuevo organismo social,
in a new social organism,
destruyendo las causas del mal
destroying the causes of evil
de esta vil sociedad maldecida.
of this vile cursed society.
¡A la revolución!
To revolution!
¡Obreros, a luchar!
Workers, struggle!
Con decisión a conquistar
With the will to win
nuestra emancipación.
our emancipation.