It was a long week.
In addition to my normal meetings and work last week, I spent a lot of time going over the Attorney General’s guidance for knowing your rights in the event of an ICE encounter. https://www.mma.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/05.29.2025-AGO-ICE-Guidance-Final.pdf

When this document crossed my desk, I immediately thought it would be wise to bring a copy to our receptionists, who requested I go through it with them. I was more than happy to do so, and amazingly this quickly snowballed into doing several trainings for staff at multiple locations.
I shouldn’t have been surprised – here at Stavros, we say that everyone is an advocate, and clearly it isn’t just talk. Everybody here wants to know their rights and be prepared for a potential ICE encounter, and getting solid information from a reliable source is a great way to calm the anxiety we all have at this moment of political turmoil and increasing violence.

With the 24/7 news cycle, sometimes it feels like stress is being broadcast straight into my brain. But the immediacy of this crisis really hit home when I was standing in our Springfield office, explaining judicial warrants to a group of staff. The fact that this could really happen here…masked men with guns could come into the office demanding to take one of my coworkers into custody at any time. It was terrifying.

ICE officers have been recorded saying things like, “I don’t need a warrant,” and just last week New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was illegally detained by ICE for standing by an immigrant who was being taken. Lander was recorded asking the officers to see their judicial warrant – exactly the advice I’m passing along from the Attorney General’s office.

As frightening as these events are, between the arrests of several lawmakers, and the protests across the country, I’m feeling a sense of community. People around the country are standing up against encroaching fascism, and these points of contact between the system and people of integrity are what are making the news. People are being arrested and detained, sure, but they’re being arrested and detained for standing up for what they believe in. From the New Jersey congressional delegation to the lawyer from California I saw standing up in court against the deployment of troops, people are creating resistance.
When I went to my local “No Kings” protest last Saturday, I was encouraged to see thousands of people gathered. The county seat of our rural area was buzzing, with everyone peacefully walking together down Main Street, holding signs and smiling. It reminded me that I’m not alone in this work…and neither are any of you. What we do as individuals matters, and together our voices are loud. I admit that I had the Schoolhouse Rock song with the preamble of the Constitution stuck in my head the whole weekend.

“We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Here we are. We the people. We want to bolster our country, establish justice, ensure peace, and promote the general welfare. We want our tax dollars funding school lunches, and infrastructure like roads, rather than dictatorial parades. And all across our United States, people are standing up to say that we will not have our friends and neighbors treated inhumanely. We will stand up for what we believe in. We the powerful people.

Check out this video to learn more about your rights during an ICE encounter:
https://youtu.be/yVnTwJSKA0g

Rachael Cowan,

Systems Change Advocate