This Month in Criminalization

Written By Tiffany Wang

December 17, 2025

You can also read the original newsletter in Mailchimp here.


Welcome to the final 2025 edition of our "This Month in Criminalization" newsletter, in which IC co-founder Andrea J. Ritchie shares hot topics and current legislative and policy developments in criminalization and points people to calls to action and relevant resources. You can find previous editions of this newsletter on our website here. 

You can find the full newsletter below, with action items and resources listed in drop-down sections, indicated by a "+” sign on the left. If you prefer to go directly to checking out all of the “action items,” you can find them in this white box section below:

Action Items:

Our goal in these monthly roundups is not to contribute to overwhelm, but to help you sift through the firehose of information and focus in on a few things we can and must do wherever we are — as organizers, community members, health care providers, educators, policy advocates, legislators, and funders — to interrupt the criminalization that is the core mechanism and methodology of implementing and rationalizing Right-wing, authoritarian, and fascist agendas and regimes. Deep thanks to our partners at the Building Movement Project, Muslims for Just Futures, Autonomy News, and FWD.us for their contributions. 

Let us know if you find these roundups helpful, how you are using them, and what you’d like to see more or less of in these monthly updates by completing this very short survey! 

First: Reflections from Andrea about the past year, and the road ahead:

May Our Deepening Resistance and Solidarity Inspire and Push Us Forward: Onward!

There is no question that the past year has brought successive tsunamis of criminalization. From expanding and intensifying deployments of ICE, federal enforcement agencies, military forces, and the National Guard in cities across the country and at the border, to escalating sweeps and disappearances of unhoused communities, to efforts to shut down health care for trans people, abortion, and HIV prevention and treatment, to escalating exercises of coercion and control over disabled people, all as the U.S. ramps up military aggression under cover of the drug war in the Caribbean and Pacific and continues to fuel genocides raging on in Palestine, the Sudan, and beyond — criminalization has served its core function in the consolidation of authoritarianism in the U.S. 

And there is no question that our resistance has multiplied, deepened, and expanded to meet these waves of criminalization — thousands upon thousands of people have gathered from Los Angeles to Chicago to Charlotte, and from Boston to Memphis to New Orleans, to train each other to track and confront ICE and to accompany and protect their neighbors.

Veterans, protesters, faith leaders, teachers, health care workers, elected officials, parents, workers, and everyday people everywhere have blocked and chased federal agents and National Guard out of their streets, transit centers, health care facilities, schools, and workplaces, and have protested outside jails, prisons, and detention facilities. Communities have defended spaces where day laborers gather, encampments of unhoused people, street vendors, farm workers, and mutual aid centers.

 
“We have gathered our friends, families, coworkers, and community members, skilled up, and hit the phones, the doors, and the streets in refusal of authoritarian violence at home and abroad.”

We have waged fights to divest from surveillance tech and data sharing being deployed by the state to hunt our neighbors. We have continued to demand divestment from Israeli bonds and from armed forces in the Sudan, and to decry U.S. imperialism everywhere.  We have gathered our friends, families, coworkers, and community members, skilled up, and hit the phones, the doors, and the streets in refusal of authoritarian violence at home and abroad.

Art by Olly Costello featuring the words "despair will not have me" in all caps red text and a colorful, glowing white flowering plant with blue leaves, emerging from a dark background of brown and black leaves.

“As one Bluesky user put it, 'institutions failed us, but our neighbors did not.'“

There is also no question that as the calendar year draws to a close, many of us are feeling tired, depleted, and in some cases defeated by the relentless assaults of the past year — and that we need to find ways to continue to show up through the holiday season, and to tap out, take rest, and replenish our bodies, minds, and spirits as we prepare for what 2026 will bring. 

And there is no question that there is much to inspire and galvanize us in the creativity, commitment, and courage we have collectively found and shown in resistance over the 12 months — and in the ways we have been able to challenge, confront, and interrupt criminalization, push back against authoritarianism, and practice the worlds we plan to build in its place.

Onward! 🌱💜

Tightening Visa and Migration Restrictions

➡️  In an act of collective punishment for the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in D.C. over the November holiday weekend, the administration halted all pending applications for asylum regardless of the nationality of the applicant, and will re-review all immigrant benefit applications for people from 19 countries named in the regime’s current travel ban, including green card applications. Previously scheduled naturalization ceremonies and interviews for immigrants from “countries of concern” have been canceled, and the Department of Homeland Security has signaled its intentions to add additional countries to this list. 

 

Escalation of Federal Occupation in D.C.

➡️  Describing the shooting of two members of the National Guard as an “act of terrorism,” the regime deployed an additional 500 National Guard troops to D.C. in late November, on top of the 5000 troops already stationed in the nation’s capital. 

D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) quickly joined the National Guard on street patrols, and continues to cooperate with intensifying federal immigration enforcement efforts and to coordinate traffic stops, street vendor sweeps, and data sharing with federal agencies in direct violation of DC's claims to being a “sanctuary city.” While on patrol with MPD, federal agents from the Homeland Security Investigative unit (HSI) chased and shot at two people, who, fortunately, were not seriously injured. 

 

Expansion of ICE Enforcement and Resistance in New Orleans, New York, and Minneapolis

➡️  The federal government continues to ramp-up deployment of military forces and immigration enforcement across the country, and has threatened to deploy the National Guard to “every city that we possibly can that needs our help," stating that "there are a lot of them.”

 

Everywhere, People are Coming Together to Defend Each Other

➡️  ICE expansion and aggression continues to be met with coordinated community defense as rapid response networks and ICE watch patrols are established and expand across the country. In just a few examples among hundreds:

 

"Charlotte was the first southern city targeted by ICE. 
Maybe they thought the South would stay quiet. 
They were wrong. 

Night after night, hundreds of North Carolinians became thousands who packed churches to join trainings on how to keep their communities safe. They signed up for shifts to make it possible for immigrants to get to school and work safely as Safe to School, Safe to Work Patrols. Hundreds led community patrols warning neighbors about the verified presence of federal agents. People we met one day were leading shifts and onboarding new volunteers the next day. 

When Border Patrol expanded from Charlotte to Raleigh, so did we.

Within a week, they left. But our work hasn’t stopped. We know that this fight is not over, so we wanted to share our learnings on how we responded to that moment and melted ICE in our neighborhoods.”

— Defend & Recruit

 

Targeting of Groups Opposing the Administration’s Agenda

➡️  The administration and its allies are ratcheting up efforts to target opposition groups through “domestic terrorism” designations:

  • Through a memo aimed at implementing the President’s Executive Order and Presidential Memorandum targeting opponents of his authoritarian agenda, the U.S. Attorney General has ordered the FBI to compile a list of organizations to be designated as “terrorist” groups based on opposition to the regime’s reign of terror against migrants, efforts to erase trans existence, unleashing of law enforcement violence, and Christian supremacy, among other actions and policy positions. The federal government has also made funds available to financially incentivize members of the public to report groups to the agency through its existing “tip lines” while delivering devastating cuts to health care, income supports, and food programs. The Attorney General has also ordered the IRS to investigate groups for “tax crimes.”

  • The President issued an Executive Order calling on the Secretary of State to issue a report within 30 days on assessing whether the Muslim Brotherhood and any (alleged) "chapters and subdivisions” should be designated as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO)  or “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” (SDGT), and to take appropriate steps to carry out any such designations within 45 days. It is important to note that no such designation has yet been made.

  • Finally, in a gesture devoid of real world impact, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) a "foreign terrorist" and "transnational criminal" organization pursuant to state law. Because the purported designation was made under state criminal and property laws, it does not carry the legal and criminal implications of a terrorist designation under federal law. The designation therefore has no impact on the legality of engaging in partnerships, coordination, or service provision with CAIR. Most importantly, it serves as a trial balloon for escalation of Islamophobic targeting of Muslim organizations.


➡️  While none of these designations have yet gone into effect, the chilling effect of the administration’s increasingly aggressive attacks on any expression of opposition to its agenda is already being felt — for instance, a conference was recently shut down over a complaint of “anti-law enforcement sentiment.” The complaint merely referenced a pamphlet left on a table at the conference, and one of the presenters at this year’s conference developed the ICE-BLOCK app to aid ICE watch groups, which has since been removed from app stores.

 

Organizing Against State Surveillance

➡️  Efforts to weaponize tech for surveillance of migrants, protestors, and other law enforcement targets continue to expand:

  • Flock automated licence plate readers are being used to track and surveil migrants, protestors, and other law enforcement targets. 

  • DHS has released a facial recognition app, Mobile Identify, to local police working with ICE on immigration enforcement. The app can be used to instantly pull up people's name, birthday, alien number, and immigration status. It has since been removed from the Google Play store following public outcry.

  • DHS is proposing to expand its existing biometric surveillance program, which encompasses facial recognition, ocular imagining, voice recognition, and more, to include a DNA test. The test could be used in naturalization or immigration benefits decisions.

  • Government records indicate that the FBI successfully infiltrated and spied on the Signal chat of a New York City court-watch group active in monitoring and responding to ICE activity as people are violently kidnapped while attending immigration hearings. In a joint report citing the chat, the FBI and the NYPD referred to the group as "anarchist extremist actors" who are "targeting law enforcement officers and federal facilities.” It is unconfirmed how the FBI gained access to the Signal chat, though in a statement the Bureau said they received the information from “a sensitive source with excellent access.” Organizations across the country have stepped up vetting practices in response.

  • ✅  Join efforts to block your city or municipality from using Flock and other technology to spy on you and your neighbors!

    • Local Progress is organizing local elected officials against the use of AI technologies and data sharing with ICE.

    • The Plate Privacy Project is opposing local government contracting with Flock Safety for the use of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs).

 

Targeting Trans Health Care

➡️  A vote is expected in the House this week on a federal bill that would criminalize providers of gender-affirming care as well as parents of trans youth who support their children in seeking care. The legislation would go so far as to punish parents with up to a decade in prison for transporting their child to the doctor to seek gender-affirming care or paying for such care, and threatens doctors with fines and prison sentences of up to 10 years just for consulting with parents of trans youth about care related to their gender. The bill has no counterpart in the Senate, and therefore is unlikely to become law during this session.

➡️  The administration is also expected to drop two long-expected proposed administrative rules this week that would 1) bar the use of Medicaid funds for provision of gender-affirming care to trans youth and 2) bar health care facilities who provide such care from participating in Medicaid. The proposed rules would change nothing about the legality of providing gender-affirming care — and are both subject to public notice and comment requirements. 

➡️  Texas prosecutors recently amended civil complaints against two providers of gender-affirming care making baseless allegations of Medicaid fraud. The premise of the allegations is the same as that underlying civil subpoenas issued by the Department of Justice which have been roundly rejected by federal courts.

 

Keep Up Actions in Solidarity with Palestine

➡️  Almost daily IOF strikes against terrorized, traumatized, and multiply displaced residents of Gaza in the six weeks since the purported U.S.-brokered “cease-fire” have killed over 300 people, including approximately two children a day, while food, shelter, basic health care, and clean water continue to be largely unavailable, and bombed buildings and fragile tents collapse in winter storms. 

➡️  Continuing efforts to stop the flow of funds and weapons to the genocidal occupation of Palestine are bearing fruit! Michigan, Minnesota, and North Carolina all recently voted to divest BILLIONS from Israeli bonds!

 

Free Support

➡️  Feeling scared? Overwhelmed? The Liberation Line is there to support you! The Liberation Line provides free mental health support calls to organizers and activists, offering support, listening, resources, processing, debriefing or strategizing. These are confidential, non-crisis, non-therapy phone calls facilitated by a trusted volunteer with experience in offering mental health support and who aligns with Palestinian and collective liberation. The Liberation Line is open to any organizer or activist involved in social or political change, who may be impacted by police or state brutality, counter-protestor violence, racism, oppression, or is experiencing conflict, stress, burnout or trauma related to their community organizing or activism. 

➡️  A reminder that Interrupting Criminalization also offers a number of free help desks:

 
 

  • Resisting Criminalization Help Desk — for organizers and groups looking for thought partnership and one-on-one consultation and support around organizing, advocacy, budget, policy, legislative or litigation strategies to interrupt criminalization, policing, and state violence.

  • Transformative Justice Help Desk — for groups and individuals who are working on projects and community-wide interventions to respond to, transform, and interrupt harm and violence without using the police and other carceral systems, and are looking for support or thought partnership.

  • Abolition Media Office Hours — for journalists, communicators, and media makers who want to challenge "copaganda,” shift the narrative about Palestine, crime, community safety, and other subjects, or directly support incarcerated people in telling their own stories; for organizers looking for help on how to build relationships with journalists or hone in on messaging their campaigns.

  • Beyond Do No Harm Health Care Strategy Consult — health care workers committed to preventing and resisting harm in health care, or looking for a thought partner on practical strategies for organizing to interrupt criminalization in health care environments.

 
Tiffany Wang
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This Month in Criminalization