This Month in Criminalization

Written By Tiffany Wang

June 20, 2025

You can also read the original newsletter in Mailchimp here.



Welcome to the June 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.

It is impossible to summarize or fully process everything that has transpired in the past month, within the violently policed borders of the United States much less beyond them. We continue to careen toward full-blown authoritarianism in the U.S. — complete with tanks, troops, abductions, and disappearances on the streets of our cities, assassinations of political leaders, and arrests and prosecutions of elected officials, judges, labor organizers, and everyday people refusing the violent kidnapping of their spouses, children, family members, neighbors, co-workers, students, and community members.

At the same time, relentless assaults on bodily autonomy and self-determination continued this week with the advance of the anti-trans eliminationist agenda through the Supreme Court decision in Skrmetti v. United States, upholding a ban on trans health care for youth, and the issuance of a DOJ memorandum targeting providers and manufacturers of medication for gender-affirming care.

Meanwhile, the administration continues to implement economic policies and push a federal budget and cuts to international programs and aid, all of which will consign millions in the U.S. and beyond to death and untold suffering.

At the same time, we continue to witness and fund ever more explicit, escalating, and inhuman genocides in Palestine, the Sudan, and beyond, and at the time of this writing, stand at the brink of joining Israel’s attack on Iran and entering a world war with potentially unfathomable consequences.

There are things each of us can do, right now, such as:

In the midst of the barrage of information and assaults, one thing is crystal clear: there is a common thread running through these rapidly evolving polycrises — criminalization. 

Criminalization is what is being used to justify targeting people for disappearance and to manufacture consent for violent police and military repression of those who resist; to frame entire nations — from newborns to nonagenarians — as threats that must be annihilated; to close the doors to the U.S. to people from over 19 countries; to delineate who is deserving of what kind of health care and who is not; to designate the very existence of Black and Brown people, trans and queer people, migrants, disabled people, abortion seekers, providers, and supporters, and anyone who disagrees with the regime, as a threat that must be extinguished.

Current narratives of resistance focused on who the “real criminals” are — instead of the process of criminalization by which certain people, groups, and actions will *always* be framed as violent threats while enabling others to engage in extreme forms of violence with absolute impunity — are counterproductive to resisting fascism and authoritarianism. These frameworks require criminalized people, groups, and actions to prove their value to racial capital — or at least an absence of threat to it — to justify their existence or avoid violence, even as the fascism we are fighting is designed to deliver them violence and eliminate their existence.

Criminalization plays a critical role in manufacturing consent for repression, expulsion, and elimination by authoritarian and fascist regimes — arguably more than cowardice or a human instinct to comply with authority, in a misguided effort to preserve peace or privilege. 

That’s why challenging criminalization rather than participating in it is essential to effective resistance.

In other words: criminalization got us here, criminalization is keeping us here, criminalization is definitely not going to get us out of here.

This matters. 

A lot.

It is by confronting and challenging criminalization that we have the best chance to strike at the heart of authoritarianism and fascism.

This roundup newsletter shares some ways you can do that today. Read on to learn more.

As a reminder, 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! And check out our Block & Build: But Make it Abolitionist tool and the recording of the Criminalization at the Core of Authoritarianism, Fascism, and Resistance panel!

Cops, ICE, National Guard, and Troops on the Streets of LA — and Coming Soon to a City Near You

➡️  For more about what has been unfolding in Los Angeles — as communities resist widespread deployment of ICE, raids, and violent abductions of family and community members from their homes, workplaces, streets, and outside hospitals and health care facilities, only to be met with violent repression, rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray, and heavily armed, masked ICE agents brandishing loaded weapons, in collaboration with LAPD, LA Sheriffs, the National Guard, and Marines, as well as white supremacist vigilante violence — check out this information and analysis from Muslims for Just Futures, and be sure to follow and support local organizers and groups like:

Please share and contribute as you can to local rapid response, mutual aid, and bail funds — including mutual aid formations that came together during the LA fires and are now engaged in ICE Watch, pop-up food and supply distribution, and clinic sites.

➡️  In addition to deploying over 700 Marines to Los Angeles — leading to the arrest of a Black veteran and was on his way to the VA for an appointment — the administration issued an Executive Order effective nationwide authorizing the Secretary of Defense to “employ any other members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary to augment and support the protection of Federal functions and property in any number determined appropriate in his discretion. To carry out this mission, the deployed military personnel may perform those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary to ensure the protection and safety of Federal personnel and property.” 

Since then, over 700 additional military personnel have been authorized for deployment to support ICE operations in Florida, Texas, and Louisiana.

The administration is claiming that military deployment against civilians in the U.S. is justified, at least in part, based on the preposterous and profoundly racist notion that the U.S. is the subject of a “foreign invasion” in the form of migration. 

  • The Brennan Center offers counter arguments on the legality of the administration’s actions — use them to disrupt local narratives normalizing deployment of military forces on U.S. soil (or anywhere!)

The administration has also issued statements promising to intensify immigration raids and enforcement across the country, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, and directing the Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon, ICE, FBI, DEA, ATF, etc. to target sanctuary cities and Democratic strongholds for enforcement action (in addition to previously threatened funding cuts, including threats to cut federal transportation funds) in support of its mass deportation agenda.

  • ✅  Get ready!

    ✅  Activate local officials!

    • Pressure local and state officials to do everything in their power to stop ICE operations and resist deployment of ICE, National Guard, military troops, and federal agencies and task forces in your jurisdiction, and block local law enforcement from supporting federal operations.

    • Demand your local officials stay strong on sanctuary protections, and ensure that local law enforcement do not provide cover for ICE operations or repress people protecting their communities!

    • Continue to fight 287(g) agreements and deputization of local law enforcement agencies.

    • Demand your local Congresspeople exercise their oversight duties and inspect local ICE facilities and any locations where migrants are being held.

    ✅  Be aware of efforts to charge migrants with trespassing in new “specially designated military zones” at or near the border, which have been successfully challenged.

    ✅  Work on safety strategies: While “Know Your Rights” materials and trainings are important, it is also critical to know your realities and build out strategies for safety in the context of National Guard and military deployment, munitions, and weapons.

    ✅  Share resources for members of the military who are considering resisting deployment and refusing to be wielded and weaponized in support of the administration’s mass deportation agenda, including:

    ✅  Amplify local voices and move in solidarity — cities across the country held marches and took actions in solidarity with LA; we need to keep it up as LA and other cities continue to be targeted!

 

Targeting Migrant Organizations

➡️  Members of Congress issued letters to over 215 groups organizing and serving migrants, demanding that they provide information on the use of federal funds through a Google form in the next 30 days. The letters — issued in the midst of a full-on federal assault on Los Angeles — are clearly intended to intimidate migrant rights groups and migrant supporting organizations, linking migration to drugs, ”trafficking” and violence, and suggesting that migrant organizations and services are offering “material support” to an invasion of the U.S. by offering transportation, translation and housing services, and “actively advising and training…on strategies to avoid cooperation with immigration officials.”

 

DOJ Civil Enforcement Memo

➡️  The US Department of Justice issued a memo last week directing the Civil Division to prioritize enforcement of False Claims Act (which allows courts to assess treble damages and penalties against any person who knowingly submits or causes the submission of “false claims” to the government) in connection with:

  • Receiving federal funds while:

    • Engaging in “illegal DEI,” through programs that “violate civil rights laws;”

    • Engaging in what the administration defines as antisemitism;

  • Providing gender-affirming care or medication and:

    • Making “false claims submitted to federal health care programs for any non-covered services related to radical gender experimentation”

    • Billing “the federal government for impermissible services. This includes, for example, providers that attempt to evade state bans on gender dysphoria treatments by knowingly submitting claims to Medicaid with false diagnosis code.”

➡️  The memo also charges the division with:

  • Investigating and enforcing violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by “manufacturers and distributors engaged in misbranding by making false claims about the on- or off-label use of puberty blockers, sex hormones, or any other drug used to facilitate” health care for trans youth;

  • Bringing affirmative challenges to local and state sanctuary laws; and

  • Reviving and expanding efforts to denaturalize U.S. citizens deemed “criminals” or “gang members,” or that pose an “ongoing threat to the United States,” expanding the scope of denaturalization from alleged fraud or misrepresentation in obtaining citizenship to reach actions taken after citizenship was obtained.

➡️  The administration’s goal is to use civil lawsuits carrying potentially steep financial penalties to scare individuals, corporations, and cities and states into backing down from having anti-discrimination programs, acting to end genocide in Palestine, providing and manufacturing medications for gender-affirming care, and creating sanctuary for migrants. We can and must resist:

 

Travel Ban

➡️  On June 4th the administration resurrected discriminatory travel bans and severe restrictions on citizens of over 19 countries, including Haïti, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

 

Migrant Registry in Operation

➡️  The administration’s migrant registry — rooted in WWII registration requirements for Japanese people present in the United States and enforced post-9/11 through the “Muslim registry” (NSEERS) — is now up and running, and individuals are beginning to be charged with failure to register (a misdemeanor carrying a potential 6 month sentence and/or $5000 fine). 

In some cases judges have thrown out or prosecutors have withdrawn the charges, but in other cases, people charged have pled guilty to failing to register. The administration claims that 57,000 people have registered to date.

Check out this resource from CHIRLA (available online here), and be sure to consult an experienced and trustworthy immigration attorney and your local immigrant rights organization before making a decision about whether to register.

 
 

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