This Month in Criminalization

Written By Tiffany Wang

May 20, 2025

You can also read the original newsletter in Mailchimp here.

Welcome to the May edition of Interrupting Criminalization's "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.

May 15th marked the 77th year of the ongoing Nakba or “catastrophe,” in the midst of the ongoing, escalating, and intensifying U.S. funded and sponsored genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and beyond, as millions of Palestinians are being deliberately starved to death, bombed, incinerated, mutilated, and martyred, concentrated into camps until they are exterminated, or expelled from their lands.

This is not only the story of the Palestinians; it is the history of Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island and of the African continent, of the global slave trade, of Jews, Roma and Black people and communists, queers, trans people, and feminists during the Holocaust, the story of the people of South Africa under apartheid and in the Sudan today, and of so many more peoples around the world targeted for genocidal policies and practices throughout history. We owe all of them our commemoration, reparations, and, above all, our resistance — with all of our might.

In the U.S., criminalization continues to be weaponized against migrants, journalists, health care providers, students, protesters, trans, disabled, unhoused, and pregnant people in service of the administration’s authoritarian and fascist agenda. 

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, authoritarian, and fascist agendas and regimes. Deep thanks to our partners at the Building Movement Project and Muslims for Just Futures 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! 

☎️  If you are organizing to resist criminalization and could use a thought partner, connections, or resources, be sure to reach out to the Resisting Criminalization Help Desk!

💻  Did you miss the panel discussion about Criminalization at the Core of Authoritarianism, Fascism, and Resistance with Andrea J. Ritchie, Rachel Herzing, Ejeris Dixon, Woods Ervin, and Scot Nakagawa? Check out the recording of the event here!

Executive Orders “Unleash” the Violence of Policing

➡️  The administration recently released several executive orders aimed at increasing police power, personnel, resources, and impunity, and targeting sanctuary cities and jurisdictions opposing its mass detention, deportation, and aggressive policing agendas. While none of the orders carry the weight of law, they direct the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to take the following actions:

🖊️  “Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement” orders the U.S. Attorney General to “defend and protect” cops by:

  • Prosecuting local officials who “impede” law enforcement. Over the past month, we have already seen:

  • Increasing transfers of “excess military and national security assets to assist State and local law enforcement,” and looking into how “military and national security assets, training, non-lethal capabilities, and personnel can most effectively be utilized to ‘prevent crime.’”

  • Increasing funding to law enforcement to increase pay and benefits for cops and for prisons.

  • Increasing resources for law enforcement training, including the construction of “cop cities” across the country.

  • Strengthening and expanding legal protections for law enforcement officers and pushing for “enhanced sentences” for “crimes against law enforcement officers.”

  • Increasing investment in and collection, distribution, and uniformity of “crime data” across jurisdictions, fueling increased copaganda.

  • Creating a mechanism to direct pro bono hours extorted from private firms targeted by the administration to defend civil rights cases against cops.

  • Sharing best practices to State and local law enforcement to aggressively police communities against all crimes, reducing opportunities to decriminalize or deprioritize enforcement of low-level offenses.

  • Pulling back on federal criminal prosecutions of police (which do little to prevent or ensure accountability for police violence).

  • Exiting federal consent decrees, out-of-court agreements, and post-judgment orders (which, while offering opportunities for community conversations about the violence of policing, also do little to prevent or offer accountability for police violence while costing millions).

(Graphics below are from the Community Resource Hub's Instagram, here):

🖊️  “Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens” orders the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to:

  • Create and publish a list of sanctuary jurisdictions and cut their federal funds and contracts.

  • Enforce federal criminal laws prohibiting “obstruction” of government, “harboring” migrants, “conspiracy against the United States,” and the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act.

  • Scrutinize migrant eligibility for federally funded benefits administered by private organizations.

🖊️  Another Executive Order mandates the Secretary of Homeland Security to increase the number of agents dedicated to mass deportation by “deputizing and contracting with State and local law enforcement officers, former Federal officers, officers and personnel within other Federal agencies, and other individuals to increase the enforcement and removal operations force of the Department of Homeland Security by no less than 20,000 officers.”

  • This paves the way for cops, former cops, and even potentially private individuals to essentially become bounty hunters for the federal government. Florida has already deputized 100 Highway Patrol officers to enforce federal immigration laws.

🖊️  The administration also withdrew regulations governing treatment of pregnant people, people with serious medical conditions, and elderly and disabled people in immigration detention, where horrifying conditions and in-custody deaths continue to be reported.

 

Criminalizing Journalists

➡️  The Attorney General recently removed protections for journalists from federal subpoenas seeking their sources, setting journalists up for criminalization and prosecution if they refuse to disclose them.  

  • ✅  If you’re a journalist or media maker, save the date and sign up to join our next journalism resistance labon Wednesday, July 16th at 6-8 PM ET, hosted by IC Abolition Journalism fellow Lewis Raven Wallace! These sessions aim to be a safe space for workers to skill-share, go over existing and new resources, and connect. We ask that each participant fill out a small application here(if you’ve attended any of our previous journalism sessions this year, no need to reapply). 

    ✅  A reminder that IC Fellow Lewis Raven Wallace also offers Abolition Media Office Hours for journalists, communicators, and media makers! 

 

Disappearances, Detentions, and Deportations

➡️  While Mahmoud Khalil, who was cruelly denied the opportunity to be present during the birth of his son, and Leqaa Kordia, who filed a writ of habeas corpus and was granted bond but remains in ICE detention pending the government’s appeal, continue to be incarcerated based on their participation in pro-Palestine anti-genocide protests — public and legal pressure led to the release of Rümeysa Öztürk, Moshen Mahdawi, and Badar Khan Suri, and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel was forced to drop charges against University of Michigan students in connection with their participation in encampments last year.

  • ✅  Continue calling and writing to your members of Congress, as well as showing up to town halls, rallies, protests, and on social media to demand the immediate release of all students and to continue showing public, unapologetic solidarity with students and the fight for Palestinian liberation.

➡️  Over 200 Venezuelan and Salvadorean men remain in a torture facility in El Salvador, several in violation of federal court orders. An additional 10 people have been sent to the facility since our last newsletter. While courts have blocked further transfers, the administration is in the process of solidifying and expanding agreements with dozens of countries to accept people removed from the U.S.

  • ✅  View a database of the disappeared and a map of last known locations here.

    ✅      Call your representatives to demand they take action to stop the U.S. from sending people to countries they have no connection to, where extreme violence against migrants and incarcerated people has been documented.

➡️  As masked ICE agents continue to violently abduct people from their homes, streets, and workplaces across the country, people are taking action to educate, prepare, and defend each other — join them in protecting your neighbors and co-workers!

 

Trans Health Care Snitch Line

➡️  The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced protections for people who report private health care information indicating that minors are receiving gender-affirming care to law enforcement, and established a snitch line to reporting health care providers to HHS.

 

Autism Registry

➡️  Advocates have expressed deep concern regarding a recent announcement regarding a $50 million nationwide NIH “study” collecting private medical records from private and federal databases to help researchers “study” autism by creating a comprehensive database — essentially amounting to a national registry of people diagnosed with autism. 

While the federal government has since clarified that it will only link existing data sets, not create new ones, there is still reason to be alarmed. Seven states – Delaware, Indiana, North Dakota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Utah, and West Virginia – ALREADY have mandatory autism registries, while New Hampshire passed a law in 2024 repealing theirs. Cities and local police departments sometimes also maintain registries of disabled people.

 

Abortion Criminalization

➡️  Efforts to enshrine fetal personhood, which would dramatically expand criminalization of pregnant people and abortion seekers, continue across the country. Additionally judicial decisions and policies that include viability lines also play a role in advancing fetal personhood and pregnancy criminalization.

  • ✅  Join Karen Thompson of Pregnancy Justice and Garin Marschall of Patient Forward on June 3rd at 12 PM ET for a webinar on the broad implications of viability lines, beyond abortion. Register here!

    T    he two recently collaborated on a new report released by Pregnancy Justice, The Role of the Viability Line in Pregnancy Criminalization. This groundbreaking report investigates the history and implications of enshrining the viability line into law, the relationship between viability lines and fetal personhood, and the current and future threats they pose against pregnant people beyond abortion care — including criminalization, family separation, forced medical interventions, and other deprivations of bodily autonomy. 

    ✅  Check out Unpunish Pregnancy, a new resource to resist criminalization of pregnancy from Patient Forward and CAIP, and IC’s resources on pregnancy criminalization here!

 

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 IC also offers various free help desks that provide support for people organizing to resist criminalization; people working on projects to respond to or interrupt harm and violence without the state; journalists and media makers concerned about criminalization; and health care workers committed to resisting criminalization in health care settings.

 
Tiffany Wang
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This Month in Criminalization