Asian MN Organizations Condemn the ICE Raids Sweeping the Nation & Demand Justice for Immigrants

Date of Publication: 07/09/2025

We are enraged and heartbroken as the attacks on immigrants continue to escalate to devastating levels. All across the nation, ICE is dragging people from their homes and ripping apart communities. In plain clothes, masks, and unmarked vans, ICE agents are publicly violating the rights of our community members. Our government is actively revoking the rights, safety, and due process of immigrants. Families are being torn apart, children are being traumatized, and people are forced to witness their loved ones being kidnapped. ICE is disappearing thousands of our people. Meanwhile, government forces are using military tactics against U.S. civilians to instill fear and silence our cries for justice. However, we stand united, louder, and stronger than ever: immigrants belong here, and no one is illegal on stolen land. 

As Asian Americans, this moment in time is deeply traumatizing. Anti-Asian hate has always been deeply ingrained in American history through anti-immigrant and xenophobic policies. Racism was part and parcel of the very first immigration law, starting from the Page Act, then the Chinese Exclusion Act, and continuing to the Muslim Ban. The first border patrols and detention centers were created as bounty hunts for Chinese migrants. Recently, Trump reinstated the “Alien Enemies Act”, the same policy that led to Executive Order 9066, where over 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps.  Every day, we see thousands of more beds being built in new concentration camps for immigrants, and we refuse to let history repeat itself

2025 marks the 50th year since the U.S. military intervention in Southeast Asia. This militarism caused the mass displacement of over 1.2 million Southeast Asian refugees resettling in the U.S. The U.S. dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs in Laos and Cambodia. Similarly, U.S. military intervention and occupation in countries such as the Philippines, Guam, and Hawaii caused long-term destabilizing effects, including irreversible environmental damage and the destruction of sacred native cultures.  This drove many of our community members to leave their homes as asylees, refugees, visa holders, or without documents in the U.S., the same country responsible for displacing them.

For many of our communities, we are here because the U.S. was there. The U.S. continues to create conditions for refugees and mass displacement across the globe, meanwhile imposing extreme anti-immigrant policies in return. We continue to see unjust immigration policies exploit immigrants.  This is a cycle of violence and dehumanization that is rooted in colonialism and white supremacy. The countries listed on the recent travel ban include countries from Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Arab nations. The racial makeup of these targeted countries is not a coincidence. This is the blatant and shameless foundation of U.S. racism and white supremacy. 

We refuse to buy into false narratives, xenophobic propaganda, and racial profiling. ICE does not keep our communities safe. ICE, police, and federal agents are working together to uproot communities of color by detaining and caging activists, immigrants with no prior convictions, elected officials, citizens, children, students, tourists, and anyone who speaks out. Our tax dollars that are meant to fund public goods are instead funding the violent forces of ICE, Customs and Border Patrol, and the military that the administration is deploying to surveil, silence, and hurt the people they claim to protect 

We are experiencing history repeating itself. We will not stay silent during this descent into fascism, which many of our elders survived firsthand from dictators who benefited from US imperialism. We can not let down our movement ancestors, our people, and one another; all of our lives are at stake. As Asian Americans, we are tasked with a legacy of love, hope, and resistance. Other than the indigenous peoples of this land and enslaved Africans, we are all immigrants in the U.S.

Anti-immigrant policies, detention, and deportation are inhumane and unjust. When we say nothing, do nothing, and act as if this violence does not affect us, we are betraying our humanity. Our rallying cries signify our deep love and commitment to our shared liberation. “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win.” – Assata Shakur

Organizations Signed On