ICE, Border Patrol, and other federal agencies have turned immigrant neighborhoods in Chicago, IL, and Charlotte, NC, into open-air hunting grounds, snatching people off streets, out of parking lots, and in front of their children. But in each city, federal forces have also faced strong grassroots resistance. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with organizers from Charlotte and Chicago, Miguel Alvelo Rivera and Andrew Willis Garcés, about the on-the-ground reality of President Trump’s immigration raids and the ways communities are organizing and mobilizing against them.

Guest:

Miguel Alvelo Rivera is a migrant from Puerto Rico who came to the United States in 2007. He is the executive director of Latino Union of Chicago and has been a life-long educator, advocate, and believer in the power of people to change the world for the better. Co-founder of the community organizing, advocacy, and human rights group, Chicago Boricua Resistance, he's been active in community, environmental, and labor movements since he was a teenager in Puerto Rico. He's also worked as an Uber driver and delivery person, as a bartender, and as an educator in theater of the oppressed, adult education, and youth programming.
Andrew Willis Garcés is based in Greensboro, NC. He is a lifelong Southerner shaped and inspired by the Southern grassroots organizing tradition and also by the communities of resistance from his maternal homeland of Colombia. He founded Siembra NC under the Trump Administration, and has worked with several dozen unions and grassroots community organizations over the last two decades as an organizer, strategist, communications consultant and trainer. He’s been with Training for Change since 2009. You can read some of his writing at The Forge, Truthout, Waging Nonviolence, Convergence, In These Times.

Additional links/info:

Siembra NC website, Facebook page, TikTok, and Instagram
Latino Union of Chicago website, Facebook page, and Instagram

Credits:

Producer: Rosette Sewali
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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How to stand up to ICE: Lessons from Chicago and Charlotte