March 6, 2025

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Welcome back to 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.
As we approach the halfway mark in the federal administration’s first 100 days, power is being consolidated in the executive branch to accelerate the mass detention and deportation of migrants, target the very existence of trans people, criminalize pregnant people and abortion seekers, intensify the repression of anti-genocide, pro-Palestinian protest, and eviscerate federal institutions, programs, services, and funding, placing the survival of millions in the U.S. and around the world at risk.

Criminalization — through law, policy, threats of violence and cuts to federal funding, and increasingly incendiary rhetoric — continues to be instrumental to enacting authoritarian agendas.
Our goal in these monthly roundups is not to contribute to the overwhelm, but to help you sift through the firehose of information and focus in a few things we can and must do from wherever we are — as organizers, community members, health care providers, educators, legislators, and funders — to interrupt the criminalization that is the core mechanism and methodology of implementing and rationalizing Right-wing and fascist agendas.

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! Deep thanks to our partners at the Building Movement Project and Muslims for Just Futures for their contributions.

The federal government takes steps to revive and expand registration requirements for non-U.S. citizens.

Rooted in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Alien Registration Act of 1940, and post-9/11 NSEERS registration requirements for citizens of predominantly Muslim countries, registration requirements are premised on the notion that all migrants represent security threats that must be tracked and ultimately expelled.

On February 25th, the Department of Homeland Security announced its intention to create a registration system for all non-U.S. citizens over the age of 14 who have not already been registered and fingerprinted as part of an immigration process. Once the system is in place, the federal government intends to enforce registration through civil and criminal penalties, placing individuals and communities at increasing risk of violent enforcement, detention, and deportation.

It is important to note that there is currently no legal obligation to register OR to set up a USCIS account in preparation for registration — the registration process has not yet been created.

If you have questions about whether any future registration requirements will apply to you, please consult with a trusted immigration attorney. In the meantime, carry any immigration documents that meet the registration requirements you may have (green card, 1-94 or I-495, I-590 (Registration for Classification as a Refugee), I-766 (Employment Authorization Document) or I-862 (Notice to Appear)) with you at all times.

✅ For more information, check out:
- The National Immigration Law Center’s community fact sheet (English, Spanish) and FAQ
- The Immigration Hub's fact sheet and talking points
- Asian Americans Advancing Justice's social media toolkit
- American Immigration Council’s fact sheet
- Follow these organizations on social media to stay up to date on developments.
✅ Find out if your community has a free legal clinic or low-cost high quality legal services for migrants and share the information widely.

✅ Organizations are being encouraged by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) to sign on to legislation to repeal the federal government's authority to require non-citizens to register. This is a message bill — so organizations are also encouraged to think through how to best advise and protect migrants once registration requirements are in place.

The administration’s assaults on migrant communities continue to intensify

These assaults continue, as the administration:

Sets daily quotas for migrant arrests;
Attacks "Sanctuary Cities";
Prepares to institute a new Muslim ban and increased screening based on social media information for people seeking to enter the U.S.;
Revokes temporary protected status for select countries;
Seeks billions more for immigration and border enforcement, detention, and mass deportation efforts at the expense of Medicare, Medicaid, and other critical federal programs.

✅ Start an ICE Watch program!
- Learn more about defending your community against ICE in this article, download a toolkit, and sign up for a training!
- Read this piece from our Abolition Journalism fellow Lewis Raven Wallace for some useful on-the-ground perspective.
- Be sure to only share verified information to avoid feeding into the administration’s agenda of creating a climate of widespread fear among migrant communities. See the graphics shared here and on our Instagram post for helpful reminders.
✅ Check out this new resourcefrom the National Lawyers’ Guild's National Immigration Project on what to do if a member of your community is arrested by ICE.

✅ Defend against efforts to increase capacity to engage in mass detention and deportation through 287(g) agreements and vigilante enforcement:
- The Missouri state legislature defeated a bill that would have created a state funded program offering private bounty hunters $1000 for each “successful deportation they help facilitate.” Keep an eye out for copycat bills and programs and mobilize against them.
- Fight against 287(g) agreements between your local law enforcement agencies and sheriffs that enable and commit them to engage in federal immigration enforcement, and against deployment of state National Guards for immigration enforcement.
  - Check to see if there's already a 287(g) agreement in your community here
  - Monitor your police department and sheriff's efforts to enter into one.
  - Use this toolkit to fight!
✅ Oppose a new Muslim Ban and other restrictions on migration by signing on to the No Ban Act as an organization.

✅ Support local Muslim organizations against mounting attacks, support Ramadan fundraisers, and attend an educational event.
- Check out Project Anar’s 30 days of action for immigrant justice for this Ramadan season.
- Attend an interfaith Iftar using Shoulder to Shoulder’s listing of nationwide offerings.
✅ Support Congressional Action as an organization, to protect temporary status for people from Haïti and participate in mutual aid for Haïtian communities in your area.

✅ For more resources to take action in solidarity with migrant communities, visit Muslims for Just Futures' Community Defense Hub and download and share these essential Know Your Rights materials.

Conspiracy theorist and Trump loyalist Kash Patel has been sworn in as the head of the FBI

Patel has an express agenda of targeting the administration’s opponents, including journalists, calling the media “one of the most powerful enemies America has ever seen.” Additionally, there has been one confirmed report of the FBI targeting pro-Palestinian organizers in the Bay Area in the past several weeks.

✅ If the FBI comes calling, follow the advice of the National Lawyers Guild and “shut the fuck up!”
✅ Read the Center for Constitutional Rights’ resource“If an Agent Comes Knocking,”and share with everyone in your home, family, and community.

✅ IC’s Abolition Journalism fellow Lewis Raven Wallace is hosting resistance labs and community calls for journalists concerned about criminalization — register now! In the meantime you can always reach out to Lewis for office hours.

Criminalization of pro-Palestine students and protesters continues.

From edicts issued on social media threaten funding of educational institutions over “illegal protests,” to a federal task force targets campuses with anti-genocide pro-Palestinian encampments, to mounting suspensions, expulsions, and withdrawal of student visas, to civil litigation targeting protesters, criminalization of anyone pro-Palestine continues unabated. Escalating criminalization of resistance to genocide of Palestinians is all part of Project Esther.

✅ Join a movement-wide call on combating Project Esther hosted by IfNotNow TODAY at 8 PM ET!

✅ Learn more about the surveillance tech being used by universities to attack pro-Palestine students and chill protest and the expansion of this surveillance, policing, and criminalization in this recent piece in Prism and this article in Truthout.

✅ Keep showing your support for and solidarity with these students, who continue to organize and protest in spite of these escalating threats, and share legal resources with anyone who needs them.

Efforts to criminalize pregnant people, abortion seekers, and trans people continue

This includes:

Legislative and administrative efforts to track pregnancies and seek data on people who have obtained abortions;
Legislation that would allow people who receive abortions to be charged with murder;
A Texas bill that would pave the way for trans people to be charged with felony fraud for identifying with any gender other than sex assigned at birth. While — as outlined in Queer (In): Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States, trans people have routinely been criminalized, policed, and punished as inherently disorderly and/or fraudulent throughout U.S. history — this bill would provide police and prosecutors with a tool to do so directly.

None of these bills or policies have been enacted — but they point to the scope and scale of threats to sexual, reproductive, and gender autonomy and self determination.

✅ If you are committed to resisting criminalization in the context of access to health care, join IC’s Beyond Do No Harm Network!

✅ Continue to donate to your local abortion fund. These funds are needed now more than ever.

✅ Keep showing up for trans people — from joining or organizing a protest/rally to signing petitions and calling your policymakers, it is essential that we continue to vocally and forcefully organize support of trans people in our communities, including our health care facilities, workplaces, schools, and public spaces. Continue to call on health care providers to continue to provide life-saving care to trans people.

Support incarcerated people in New York State!

Following the deployment of the National Guard inside New York State prisons due to work stoppages and protests by prison guards across the state in response to charges related to the brutal torture and murder of Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility, incarcerated people are being subjected to widespread lockdowns and canceled personal and legal visits indefinitely at all New York State prisons.

Provisions of the HALT Solitary Confinement Act, a law passed by a supermajority of lawmakers and signed by the Governor, have been suspended and incarcerated people are locked down in their cells upwards of 24 hours a day, suffering delayed or denied access to food, medication, mental health and medical care, heat, electricity, showers, commissary, religious services, college and educational classes, and other vital programs and basic needs, on top of ongoing rampant staff physical and sexual abuse. A number of incarcerated people have already died as a result, including one who was killed by prison guards on Saturday.

✅ Read more about what is happening in this piece from Survived and Punished New York member Sara Kielly.

✅ Write New York state officials to demand immediate action!