Why try, if it feels like we're just walking in circles?

Because. Because. Because.

Update: January 3rd (9:30 PM CT). As of this evening, Yessenia Ruono has not been deported. While there is not a guarantee that she will be able to remain in Milwaukee, ICE is currently allowing her to stay while her latest appeal is being considered. In their press release this afternoon, Voces De La Frontera thanked “growing support from Milwaukee residents, leaders and advocates.” Importantly, though, Yessenia’s fundraiser remains active (thanks to all the White Pages readers who’ve contributed) and both she and her family still have to live with the fear that her appeal might not be granted.

The Milwaukee ICE office is on the north side of downtown, perched halfway up a steep hill. That’s its only truly remarkable feature. There are no steel bars or guard towers. Jackbooted thugs don’t emerge en masse every few minutes to intimidate passerby. It doesn’t present as a prison; it presents as the kind of building where co-workers mumble resigned “how’s it going/living the dreams” to one another on Monday morning. There’s a Panera further up the hill, in case any employees of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency would like a You Pick Two salad and half-sandwich combo on their lunch break. 

Apparently, there are plans to move the ICE office to the far side of town. The new building will be more deliberately foreboding, with “prison-like modifications.” I’m terrified by that architectural evolution, but aesthetics aside, what’s the difference? So many worst days of people’s lives, especially poor people’s lives, happen in cubicles. Papers stamped. Requests denied. Dreams killed. “Next case, please.”

It really is a steep hill though. I bet the Department of Homeland Security SUVs have to use their parking brakes when they return from their life-ruining trips down to the south side, the part of the town with the old cathedrals and the new canicerías. I know I’m really harping on the building’s grade, but I’ve spent multiple hours over the past decade walking up and down that hill, in various slow-moving, self-serious circles. It’s an odd relationship to have to a building. Every other administration, I walk disappointingly in its vicinity for a couple hours at a time. I’m not proud that I skipped a Presidency, that for four years I tried to ignore that the building was still there. At least I’m back now.

Thank God that many years ago some activist came up with the term “picket,” because otherwise how would we ever recruit anybody for “walking in a circle with signs.” I am, to be clear, a true believer in protest in its various forms, but I am also a self-conscious human being who frets and doubts and second guesses whether what we’re doing is enough. And in the pantheon of protest activities, a picket line is uniquely suited to the cultivation of doubt. All those steps, and what do you have to show for it? You literally end up in the same place where you started, hundreds of times an hour.

All pickets are like that, but especially if you’re walking up a hill only to immediately reverse your progress. Had Sisyphus not cheated death and instead lightly plagiarized a critical theory thesis, perhaps this would have been his fate– up and down in front of the ICE building, holding a placard rather than a boulder.

The crowd on the hill this past Friday was about fifty strong. Mostly white, mostly elderly, but not universally. There were clerical collars and comfortable shoes. A single socialist newspaper peddler, and a rather reserved one at that. At least one motorized scooter, as well as a prescription-sunglassed woman navigating the hills with a walker. A walker! Who am I to gripe about the tedium of a picket? God bless us, everyone, especially those with the achiest joints. 

We sang rather than chanted, joining together in familiar choruses about what we will or won’t do (overcome and be moved, respectively). I wore a Brewers hat and one of the maroon shirts that our Quaker Meeting recently printed up to make us more visible at protests. At one point the guy in front of me made a comment about how “the Brew Crew wasn’t doing so well this season.” I started to reply, but was pre-empted by an enthusiastic “oh yeah, they’re so bad” from behind me. I turned around to see a tuft of white hair peeking out from a matching blue hat. We traded a smile, then continued the song. Truth be told, the Brewers have actually been on a hot streak the past couple of weeks, but that’s the thing about hope. It’s a lagging indicator. 

“Like a tree, planted by the waaaaater, we shall not be…” 

We were gathered, this modest collection of bleeding hearts, in response to an urgent action alert from a local immigration rights organization. We were here for Yessenia Ruano, a mom, teacher’s aide and fellow Milwaukeean who has gained national attention as a particularly sympathetic casualty of Trump’s immigration crackdown. Hers is a long and devastating story, but suffice to say, any city would be lucky to have Yessenia as a resident. As we kept walking up and down the hill, Yessenia and her lawyer sat anxiously in a cubicle, awaiting an official decision as to whether she will be forced to “self-deport” back to El Salvador. 

After about a half hour of  “we shall overcoming” up and down the hill, the staffers from the immigration rights group ask us to gather together for a group picture. It’s always hard to know how to pose in a situation like this. Do you smile, because there is joy in resistance? Probably not. Better to not appear as if you’re making light of the situation. But a scowling crowd looks like a defeated crowd, so again, it’s a tough call. A few folks raised their fists. I’m hidden by a beautiful screenprinted sign that declares “Justice for Immigrants and Refugees,” so I’m relieved of the pressure to be a public picture of resistance.

While waiting for the picture, I suddenly noticed a steady stream of foot traffic in and out of the building. I should have expected this. Of course Yessenia Ruano isn’t the only immigrant with an appointment that day. I watched as men and women roughly my age shuffle into the office in professional dress, carefully clutching tidy plastic folders filled with paperwork. What do they make of this crowd, out here on this day but not every day, holding signs about “justice for Yessenia” but saying nothing about their cases? I’d understand any number of reactions. Anger. Resentment. Relief. Is it better to have more or less attention called to your situation, in a moment such as this? Likely the former, but that’s the thing about authoritarianism— its goal is to keep you guessing. 

The immigration rights group didn’t choose Yessenia’s case randomly, of course. Her story lives at the intersection of empathy and strategy. She is, in many ways, a classic “perfect victim.” A human trafficking survivor. A wife and mother to twins. A “hard worker” in a helping profession. A rule follower, somebody who never missed an appointment and whose plastic folder of documents was always well-organized. She deserves to have her story told, and I feel lucky to know it, but every time somebody is chosen to be an example, it begs the question as to who wasn’t. An unmarried queer person. A younger guy with face tattoos. Somebody who can more easily be judged by puritanical eyes. Every strategy has its shadow, and in this case it’s what some might fill in on the other side of the “Justice for Yessinia… “ ellipsis.

“…but not for…”

The photo op didn’t take long, and soon we were walking again. It’s a gorgeous day, by the way. Cool but sunny. The sky a hard-earned light blue. We had such a rainy, spring, and so many dreary protests. This didn’t take much effort, coming out for a few hours in moderate temperatures.

I knew, before the picket began, that I’d have plenty of doubts. That’s probably why I came, actually. Doubt is a cousin of faith and faith is a cousin of connection and connection is what gets us out of the house despite the voice in our head that would rather critique other people’s imperfect attempts than take a risk ourselves.

Why do this? Why walk in a plaintive little circle, when the foes you’re opposing have guns and tanks and the full force of the federal government at their disposal? Why come out for one person, when millions are being terrorized? Why try, if you’re almost certain that you’re not the one anybody is waiting for?

You do it because that’s what a neighbor does. You do it because you’re so grateful to have been asked. You do it because you truly do wish that you received word not just about Yessenia’s hearing but about everybody’s hearing. You do it because you haven’t done enough of it in the past, but there was also a time before you showed up to potlucks at your kids’ school and before you joined your Quaker Meeting and before you knew enough of your neighbors to get a “hey, could you watch our kids for a few hours this afternoon?” text. You do it because you can imagine a near future where it is too much of a hassle to deport anybody in this town, because goddamnit those Milwaukee do-gooders with their comfortable shoes and Brewers hats and earnest little peace songs just keep showing up. You do it because often the presence of a crowd doesn’t feel strictly necessary, but you never know when it’ll make all the difference. 

You do it because some days you swear you’re just walking in a circle, and then you look up to realize how far we’ve come.

An hour or so after the picket began, Yessenia and her lawyer addressed the gathering. She was in tears. Their news wasn’t surprising, but that didn’t make it any less gutting. Their appeal wasn’t granted, though as of this writing she still has not been deported. She’s now asking for a different kind of mobilization— financial help for a transition she shouldn’t be forced to make.

Later that Friday afternoon, I got equally heartbreaking word from a friend in San Diego. Their neighborhood too did what was needed– they came out en masse to protest an ICE raid at a beloved restaurant, Buona Forchetta. Unlike our sleepy little picket, they were met by immigration agents in full riot gear. There were smoke bombs and general thuggery. The message from our government: don’t you dare try to care.

Awful. So awful. But that’s not all my friend had to report.

“As you can imagine, the neighborhood WhatsApp is no longer an apolitical space. Everyone who’s commented has been on the same page, it’ll be interesting to see where we go from here as a group.”

That WhatsApp, by the way? My buddy launched it only a few months ago. Just in time, as it turns out. Once a group of strangers actually becomes a neighborhood, it doesn’t matter how much the thugs try to say “don’t you dare.” They will keep caring.

Why will we keep coming out? Because that is all we know how to do. We know to find each other. To form a crowd, and then to shape that crowd into something more. To keep giving a damn when we’re told to just give up. Some days we will be ignored. Other days we will be attacked. Many days will end in tears. On those days, the fascists will think they have us beat, because they can keep us physically from one another. They can toss some of us in jail and send others of us to El Salvador and they will go back to their cubicles and their lunches. But you will show up again, the next day the call goes out. You will still doubt. I will still doubt. We will still doubt, together.

But we won’t give up.

End notes:

1. An urgent request: Here, once again, is that link to Yessenia’s fundraiser. Her goal is $15,000, and I think together this community can help her get there. They want so desperately to make us stop caring for each other, so in response let’s care so damned hard, you all.

2. Barnraisers Project news: As I announced last week, registration is open for the new set of cohorts (a support group, of sorts, for people trying to keep community spaces going). Learn all about them here and then register here. There are a few different elements this time around (including an enrollment cap) so please read the expectations document before signing up. The good news? As always, they’re free, virtual, and a lovely time (well, I hope that last one is true).

3. A thank you: Last week, I made a specific request to this community (the gist of it was that while it is an immense blessing to make a modest living at this work, the tricky part is that all this is subject to the ebbs and flows of new vs lapsed donations, which is tough when planning and budgeting for a family). To all those of you who responded with either a new or a re-upped contribution: Oh jeez, you’re the best. Thanks to you, I’m within striking distance of recouping the larger donation that recently came to an end. Obviously, if you only have a bit of money to spare this week, please send it to Yessenia, not me (I chipped in too, something I can do because of your support), but if you ever do find yourself grateful for this work (and invested in keeping it going), know that I don’t take any subscription for granted, and will always strive to be a good steward of your contributions.

   4. No song of the week/”Musk-Trump don’t care about you” sticker of the week, but both will be back soon, I promise. Movie series coming soon as well. Stay tuned!