Dear Women’s Marchers: DACA’s Gone. Keep Your Promise To Make Trump’s Life Impossible

Last weekend, the Women’s March threatened to make Trump’s life impossible if he ended DACA. Today, Trump’s Attorney General officially announced the end of the program. The lives of 800,000 young immigrants and their families now hang in the balance. Women’s Marchers, I’m asking all five million of you to keep your promise.

First, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about what that’ll mean.

“Making Trump’s life impossible” will not happen by tweeting at the Attorneys General who petitioned Trump to end DACA, or by calling members of Congress to demand that they publicly defend immigrants (as this Twitter thread the Women’s March posted suggests). Sharing a story of “how a DACA recipient has positively contributed to this country” won’t cut it, either. If we’re being honest with ourselves, “breaking the internet with love and support for DACA” won’t even make Trump break a sweat. To borrow from Sister Helen Prejean, “Being kind in an unjust system is not enough.”

The end of DACA calls for less tweeting and more public acts of defiance.

Making Trump’s life impossible means refusing to enforce his agenda on a local level and on an everyday basis. It means allies putting their bodies on the line to defend vulnerable immigrants, including immigrants who don’t fit your image of respectability (i.e., Black, poor, disabled, queer, non-college educated people). It means sustained and collective refusal to comply with his orders to take away DACA, to separate families, to deport parents, and to establish Muslim bans.

In short, making Trump’s life impossible requires nothing short of civil disobedience. Here are a few ways to make it happen:

Teachers and school districts can deny federal immigration agents access to buildings and personnel.

Pilots can refuse to fly airplanes that will deport migrants back to places they fled, or no longer call home.

Ordinary folks can block highways and chain themselves to ICE vehicles to stop inhumane deportations and family separations.

Allies can join community defense and rapid response teams to defend immigrants in emergencies and times of need.

These aren’t hypothetical examples. They’re all actions taken by allies and advocates whose commitment to justice is rooted in an understanding that an unjust law is no law at all.

The Women’s March was the largest demonstration in United States history. If organizers and participants actually want to make Trump’s life hell, they must commit to putting their bodies on the line for the most vulnerable among us. There is no other way.

Header image via Twitter.