Crossing Lines: Cruelty, Compassion, & the Real Border Crisis, Part II

Welcome new subscribers! Thank you for joining the movement for JUST migration. I aim to post podcast episodes, webinar recordings, stories, news, event announcements, and calls to action weekly, though sometimes life and other writing deadlines get in the way. Like last week. Following an exciting update regarding Crossing the Line, my to-do list was unexpectedly hacked. But for a good reason! Stay tuned for more on that in my next post. Today, I’m thrilled to finally bring you Part II of Crossing Lines: Cruelty, Compassion, & the Real Border Crisis…

In April 2025, I had the great honor of keynoting a Southern California Immigration Teach-In — a model event I believe communities across the nation should emulate.

The gathering was the brainchild of Peyton Trilling, a high school junior at Agoura Hills High School, and Gina Muscatel, former Indivisible chapter leader and current Malibu Democratic Club co-facilitator. They pulled in long-time immigrant rights stalwarts and community organizers from

Freedom for Immigrants

, Mixteco/Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP), and Buen Vecino, as well as immigration attorney Gabriella Navarro-Busch, Esq., and immigration scholar, Dr. José Alamillo, CSU Channel Islands. These amazing speakers formed a powerhouse panel moderated by former California State Treasurer John Chiang.

We hit a few roadblocks, including the original event host backing out at the last minute. But in true Southern California spirit, Gina and Peyton decided the show had to go on! They and found a new venue. However, there was no time for a sound check, resulting in quality issues with the audio recording — hence the delay in getting this post to you.

We all felt it well worth doctoring, however, because the discussion was strung with wise pearls. And to aid your listening experience, we prepared a transcript of the event, which you’ll find below.

If you haven’t listened to my keynote address yet and would like to, please find it here:

CROSSING LINES: Cruelty, Compassion, & the Real Border Crisis, Part I

But first, before you push play, I invite you to spread the love!

With deep gratitude to Gina, John, José, Gabriella, Arcenio, Laura, Willy, Peyton and her family, and all those whose lives are being upended by rising US fascism and the the most aggressive federal assault on immigrants in modern US history, I am making this offer to all groups, like them, wishing to raise awareness and grow the movement for Just Migration through community outreach and education:

• Turn Outrage Into Action!
  Share Parts I and II of Crossing Lines: Cruelty, Compassion, & the Real Border Crisis

• Create a Book Club or Study Circle with Crossing the Line.
  Obtain books at a generously discounted rate on boxed purchases of 24, if ordered through me.

• Zoom Me In For Group Discussions.
  I can also share with you the model harnessed by Gina & Peyton for our April SoCal Teach In: Crossing Lines: Cruelty, Compassion, & the Real Border Crisis

And now I give you Crossing Lines: Cruelty, Compassion, & the Real Border Crisis, Part II (push play above)

Transcript:

Gina Muscatel, Host:

Okay, now it is my honor to introduce to you today our panel moderator. Oh, but first, I ask our lovely panel to come on up and take your seats. Thank you. These are the people doing the work who are going to hopefully teach us what we can do to jump in there and help.

Okay, so as they get settled, I will go ahead and introduce our panel moderator. He's a dedicated public servant, a visionary leader, and someone who has made a lasting impact on California's fiscal landscape.

Throughout his remarkable career, John Chiang has consistently demonstrated a deep commitment to the people of California. Serving as state treasurer from 2015 to 2019, he managed the state's finances with unwavering focus on fiscal responsibility, innovation, and transparency.

Under his leadership, California was able to navigate some of the toughest financial challenges with resilience. Beyond the numbers and policy decisions, though, John's commitment to social equity and financial justice has set him apart. He has consistently fought for solutions that create economic opportunities for all Californians, especially those in underserved communities. And he has been a strong advocate for education, affordable housing, and environmental sustainability.

Today, as we gather here, we have the privilege of hearing from someone who has not only shaped California's landscape, but has also worked tirelessly to build a more equitable and sustainable future for all.

Please join me in welcoming John Chiang.

John Chiang, Moderator:

Well, good afternoon.

It's an incredible pleasure to be with all of you. I am an FOP — a friend of Peyton —since her birth. I had the incredible fortune of as my old office mate, her Dad, and I had the pleasure of watching Andy and Heather meet and date, and then witness their joy and four apples in their eyes, the birth of their incredible four daughters, when my sister was still with us.

My sister was an immigration attorney for a formidable congressman, Congressman Howard Berman, and then went to work at the INS as an immigration attorney. She, like you, had this incredible conscience. She had this incredible courage, and I just wanted to thank you and hope you have a great future.

We want people, we want especially you, who have a better view of our humanity and will act upon it. So, thank you so very much for all your hard work.

I am so excited to moderate. I will stay out of the way of an incredible panel. They bring a great cross-section of academic expertise from industry, an immigration law practitioner and civil rights advocate, those who lead community and nonprofit organizations, who can share the experience of those who are affected, those who take bold action, and tell us how we address this and how we come together.

As stated by Sarah and your beautiful remarks, I appreciate the incredible imagery from the narrative of your book, and what we need to do to heal and grow together.

To make sure we can create a diverse humanity, and focus on a leadership example to many countries.

And so our first panelist is a distinguished professor from nearby Cal State University Channel Islands, José Alamillo.

Dr. José Alamillo, Panelist:

Yeah, I'm not distinguished, though.

John Chiang, Moderator:

We don't want to use a distinguished academic or formal term, distinguished in your work.

He has a doctorate from UC Irvine, he has a great sense of perspective on immigration. And so, Dr. Alamillo, if you would share, especially in these current times, the immigration points and narrative history that you think are most relevant to the audience?

Dr. José Alamillo, Panelist:

Yes, thank you, John.

I teach immigration history at Cal State Channel Islands, just down the road in Camarillo, and I think a couple of things that Sarah pointed out, I think are really important, is that we really need to understand the roots of migration.

And always, you know, in my immigration class, when students are, you know, fairly new to the subject, I always make sure that they understand one phrase, at least. Something that they can take with them. And that is immigrants are here because we were there, meaning that they're here with us as neighbors, as our, you know, co-workers, because the U.S. was in their homeland, in their country.

And so we really need to understand the reason for migration. That's one of the central points that I try to teach my students. Not only with, like you mentioned, the U.S. intervention in Central America, but they can be next door.

You know, the U.S. was next door to Mexico. At the turn of the century, we had U.S. railroad and agricultural companies buying up land all over Mexico that created a displacement of many of the citizens who then would migrate to cities to find jobs. But if they couldn’t find jobs in the cities, they would have to then go to the border area. And in the border area, they were either recruited or enticed to go and work in the same industry that they were in their homeland, like agriculture and railroads.

So we really need to understand those roots of migration because they're fundamental to understanding why we have this issue with so many migrants, right? So many immigrants in our country.

So that's one point.

The second point is that, you know, last year was the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Border Patrol. But also the immigration law that created it, which was known as the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act, or Immigration Act 1924. And so one of the things that I did is that I, along with one of my colleagues, we put together a special issue in the California History Journal on 100 years of the border patrol.

And so we need to understand the evolution of this agency because it's really, if you think about it, it's one of those agencies that really does not live to help people, but actually to do the opposite.

You know, when this country was founded, we had federal agencies that were really helping our citizens, like farmers, the Department of Agriculture, and then we needed to get them educated, the Department of Education.

But then we created this border patrol agency to essentially do the opposite.

It's not to assist, it's to really enforce the borders. To take them back.

And when you look at the actual origins of the Border Patrol, it wasn't just former KKK members, those are also former Texas Rangers. This is actually a group in Texas that were literally trying to kill Mexican people, citing them for going onto property or, you know, mishigas. And so if I would say, you know, looking at the origins of the Border Patrol is really important because it really makes us think about what is the purpose of what we have, what is now known as ICE, right?

And I recommend one particular documentary on the border patrol, and that is the massacre that took place by the Texas Rangers. Many of them went on to become border agents. It's called Porvenir Massacre in Texas. It's an amazing documentary that looks at the sort of violence along the border.

It was in 1918, it was the Porvenir, P-O-R-V-E-N-I-R Massacre in Texas.

That really looks at how it's vigilante groups hunted down Mexican immigrants and literally overnight massacred an entire group of them in Texas. And the other point too, the law that created the Border Patrol, the 1924 Immigration law, was really set up to create a white nation. It was supported by eugenicists, by white supremacists. And when you look at, well, how is it that they created this quota system?

Well, think about how they did that. You know, it's not like the, you know, Chinese Exclusion Act that was very clearly racist, right? It's in the title.

But when you look at the Johnson-Reed Act, it's really made up of two senators that were very much white supremacists in support of eugenicists, right?

The idea of that is the Euro-racial blood. And that we need to preserve that purity.

Well, these senators essentially, you know, not only created quotas based on the 1920 census, because in the 1920s we were a more diverse nation. They went back to 1890, when we weren't as diverse, and they used the 1890 census to create the quota system, which is basically taking 2% of every country from Europe and Asia, right, and then only allowed 2% to enter the U.S., I would say that again, 2%. And including some of the European immigrants, right, they were literally restricted under the quota system.

So when you look at the origins of this law, it also created and designed a particular type of population they wanted in this country, and that was really a privileging and preserving of Europeans that were coming from Northwestern Europe, not Southern Eastern Europe.

So, I'll leave it there.

John Chiang, Moderator:

Thank you.

Gabriela, welcome.

Gabriela Navarro-Busch is a board-winning attorney recognized for her pro bono service. She's a former board member, a former president of the Ventura County chapter of the Mexican-American Bar Association. She served on the board of the California Rural Legal Assistance, has been practicing since 2001. So she brings an unbelievable perspective of the immigration system.

Gabriella Navarro-Busch, Esq., Panelist:

The first thing I want to do is I want to thank Peyton for bringing this group together. When I was your age, there was a lawyer that inspired me to become a lawyer. And in high school, I had a fight for myself in order to be able to stay in school, and then eventually I became a lawyer.

I started practicing immigration law during the Bush administration, during Obama, during Trump, during Biden. And I don't like using the term Trump 2.0 because it kind of says that this is a better version of him. It's a more evil version of him.

And the one thing, you know, I don't like to take his name. I used to call him Beetlejuice. But I have to, we have to make sure we stamp everything that is going on with his name on it.

During the first Trump administration, many of my colleagues were deciding to throw in the towel and discontinue practicing immigration. At that point, I said, this is when they need us the most. This is not the time to back out.

I was personally involved in and had family members that were U.S. vets that were deported, and despite any actions that I could take as an immigration attorney, I wasn't able to save two of my brothers. Both of them were U.S. vets that were deported.

One died within five months of his deportation, and the other one was able to remain in Mexico and was able to make a life for himself, but because of the struggles he had on his own, he eventually died in 2023.

I've often said that if you're going to be undocumented, it's better to be undocumented in California. We have laws here that actually protect a lot of immigrants. We've been very instrumental since before even the first Trump administration to be able to pass laws to protect immigrants. We've been able to protect many immigrants that are victims of crimes in order for them to be able to pursue some type of avenue for legalization.

We do have the Trust Act that limits the ability and restricts local law enforcement from holding people for immigration. Although it continues to happen, we still see it. So what can I do as an immigration attorney?

Number one, it's not the time to throw in the towel as much as I want to.

Number two, is we have to continue to fight. There's been an executive order that was written in order to limit the rights of the person’s right to counsel and to scare attorneys from representing asylum seekers.

There's another law, “Show Me Your Papers.” It will be a matter of time when American citizens, U.S. citizens, are going to be forced into identifying who they are and where they're from.

So what I do, I do a lot of “know your rights” presentations.

I know everybody’s pushing a book. I'm not responsible for this, but this is something that I provide in a lot of literary rights presentations. It's just a book that tells people what they need to do, how they should learn rights in both English and Spanish, and the famous red cards.

These cards have been instrumental. In holding back detention as best they can.

Thank you so much again, Peyton, for having this, and I'll send it over to your next speaker.

John Chiang, Moderator:

Welcome, Arcenio Lopez, the Executive Director of MICOP.

MICOP focuses on uniting indigenous leaders in Ventura County to strengthen the history of the folks of the Mixteco community. And perhaps a good way to add to the conversation would be, what should lesson one be for the rest of us?

Arcenio Lopez, MICOP, Panelist:

Well, thank you.

I am Arcenio Lopez. I'm the Executive Director of the Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project. We are a nonprofit in the tri-counties — Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and we've been in Ventura County for the last 20 years.

We serve the indigenous migrant communities. The majority of us are from Mexico. But I think it's important to mention that we are on indigenous lands. This is the continent of native people.

In Mexico, there's about 68 indigenous nations still alive and still being under persecution and trying to make us believe that we don't belong to this continent. But we are part of this continent.

So our organization, I think this is not new, definitely is more concerning.

I think our communities are pretty afraid. But the fear is not something new for us, as migrant people. When the border was created on this continent, indigenous people here in Ventura County. We come primarily because of the agricultural industry. I will say that 6 out of 10, if not 7 out of 10, farmworkers that have come here, and I will say that the whole area of agriculture and agriculture of the state are farmworkers that are indigenous people. 60-75%. That means that … will come from the inhabitants of our community. People who are main members with … goods.

As a lot of our languages …, we speak our own native languages. At my place we speak Mixteco, but we have at least 12 different languages in our county, or indigenous languages in our county.

So our organization, for the last I would say, six weeks, eight weeks, we've been very active doing what was already shared, know your rights workshops. But also being very active and trying to build our rapid response plans.

How the Rapid Response plans look like is still struggling a lot. We are developing multiple Rapid Response plans. Those plans that make sense for us to try and protect our communities, but also plans that are trying to protect our own organization because our own organization, as a 501(c)(3), is also under threat.

So it's been a lot of work lately, but if I could just throw this out there for a call of actions, what are some of the things that I see you can do?

You can reach out to us.

You can reach out to our 805 UndocuFund organization.

Besides the rapid response plans, there's a lot of things you can help us with. We just were able, two weeks ago, we were able to win one of the cases, the very first person that was detained in the city of Oxnard. He got released under a bond.

So we want to, one way to that, the one thing that we were struggling with is trying to get funds to pay for these bonds.

He needed transportation, maybe something that would be helpful in these cases is providing transportation to these individuals.

Some of these individuals that are being detained right now. There's two or three in Santa Barbara County. Their families need emergency assistance with rent, food, and clothes.

So there’s multiple things you can support with our organizations. But I would say it's mainly reaching out to either us or reaching out to the 805 UndocuFund, which is one of the organizations that is following the Rapid Response Network.

Happy to share more if there's more time.

John Chiang, Moderator:

So on a side, during President Trump's first term, California's litigation was successful 80% of the time against Trump's actions.

Welcome, Laura, with Freedom for Immigrants.

This organization addresses many issues, or some of the issues that Sarah talked about in regards to the complex. This is the immigrant-led organization that is leading the effort on immigrant incarceration.

Laura, Freedom for Immigrants, Panelist:

Thank you, Peyton.

Thank you, Sarah, for the amazing presentation.

I didn't know what I was going to talk about today. It was really going to be a game-time decision for me. It was a game-time decision for me to even walk in the front door.

So I am directly impacted.

[apologizes for emotional response]

I was incarcerated in a California state prison for something I didn't do over 20 years ago. I spent 15 years incarcerated, and then I got out. And in the middle of the pandemic, in June of 2020, I was released.

[apologizes again]

Since I was released, well, I was released on a law called Penal Code 1172.1, which at the time, in 2019, when I was brought out to court, there was approximately 150,000 people incarcerated in California alone. Thirty-four people had been recommended for resentencing under that law.

That is how tiny the needle was to thread it through.

But I was sent out to court for resentencing. And because Penal Code 1172.1…sorry…is for people that have shown exemplary or above and beyond rehabilitative efforts. And while I was incarcerated, I became a leader, a mentor, a facilitator, a trainer, and I founded organizations.

One of the latest organizations that I founded was a youth mentor organization here in Southern California.

I was part of a movement.

I created the very first walk-a-thon in honor of victims of crime at CWF. That is now an annual walk-a-thon that happens with all of the proceeds going to the victims’ fund in Matera.

And so I got out. I came out of court, and then I was caught in the middle of the pandemic. So that's a whole other webinar, I guess. But I was there for ten months, and eventually, I was resentenced by my sentencing judge to credit time served.

Also, I think it's important to note that, you know, I'm an immigrant. I was brought to the United States when I was three months old.

I didn't choose to be born here — the place that I was born is literally a little bit under a mile from the U.S.-Mexican border.

So I didn't choose where I was born, and I didn't choose where I grew up, but I did grow up in California, in Orange County, in the city of Santa Ana. And so I became a legal permanent resident when I was a child.

But because of my conviction, I am now at the top of the list for Trump, and so I think that we're going to wake up to another era. And I have to make a decision about what I am going to do with myself, right? Because I don't want to go ahead with it, I don't want to go forward, right?

I'm still legal in this country. But I knew that I would be a priority.

And as soon as I got out in 2020, I became an organizer. I was organizing on the streets of Orange County. I became the coordinator for the Orange County Rapid Response Network.

And then in 2023, I became executive director at a national nonprofit company for immigrants. And we do work all across the state. And we focus a lot on California.

I can talk a lot about what fire renovation does if you want. But I felt like my story was important for you all to hear today.

And so fast forward, right? We also do Know Your Rights plans. We do emergency, I do emergency response training. And I do emergency planning training for people like me. And we have to create, you know, value preparedness plans.

And I can tell you that that's something you see. It feels like you're fighting. And I've made a decision.

And I've been doing all the work that I've been doing. I've also got married. My husband is here today. I got married in 2022. We got married on November 4th, 2022, and closed escrow on our house on November 14th 2022.

I got my first car out of the dealer.

I've been doing everything right, and so having to make the decision to leave my house was not an easy one.

I don’t get to see my husband for…

And it's uncomfortable because I'm always worried about my safety, and I have to look, and I have to ask him to make sure you’re not being followed. And when you go home, you look around at cars, at people. We have cameras now. We have all of this stuff that goes with keeping me safe. Keeping me here. What I’m trying to avoid is getting served a notice to appear because once that happens, I’m done.

I don't want to be taken to mandatory detention and mandatory detention because of my convictions. And so it's been hard.

So when they said, you know, when Sarah was talking about opening your doors to people, it's real.

I have people that have opened their doors to me so that I can be safe. You know, I need to move around. And those are the people that — I don't call them allies. I call them accomplices.

And so I encourage you all to become an accomplice.

John Chiang, Moderator:

Willie is our next speaker.

Willie is Executive Director of Buen Vecino, a Ventura County-based nonprofit organization focused on immigration rights, civil rights, affordable housing, racial justice.

His parents were big followers of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s peace movement for justice and opportunity. So, Willie, thank you and thank you for all you’ve done..

Willie Lubka, Buen Vecino, Panelist:

Okay, thanks.

Welcome everybody.

Great to see you all.

Buen Vecino is a grassroots advocacy and community organizing group based in Ventura County. We were founded between the election of the first Trump regime and his inauguration. One of our co-founders is an amazing retired Newbury Park High School teacher, Amy, who's right here.

We have found that since January 20th this year, the sense of people living under threat locally in Ventura County has intensified and is great and is causing a lot of stress for people. And you have to just think about living your daily life under the constant reality of potentially being abducted.

We have unaccountable troopers, stormtroopers in our county, abducting people, disappearing them every day. And when this happens, it creates an emergency for that individual and for their family.

So people are living under emergencies and under the fear of kidnappings that are occurring. People get disappeared. That's what's happening.

We are dedicated to trying as much as we can through anything we can do to prevent that from happening, to opposing and preventing the detention and deportation of our immigrant neighbors in Ventura County and throughout the state.

CLU did a study last year that estimated there are more than 60,000 non-citizens living in Ventura County, and at least 20,000 children of those non-citizens are living in our town.

That's 10% of the population. It's a huge number of people.

So, many people have talked about know-your-rights education. It's something we're very active in doing as well.

We've also heard about the red cards. We've provided red cards. If you don't have one, you can take it.

[Oh my God, I'm getting a one-minute sign. There's no way I'm going to achieve that.]

Take red cards and read what's on them. It's basic rights that are afforded to anyone in this country, regardless of their immigration status.

And one of the things we learned in doing know your rights presentations in the community, which we have done since we were founded eight or nine years ago, is a lot of us just innately feel like we have to obey or we're being a bad person. And we're trying to disabuse people of that notion and realize, no, the person giving you the order might be a bad person.

Stand up for your rights.

Don't open your door.

Exercise the right to remain silent and teach your family.

One of the things that can happen is if ICE knocks on the door of your home or your car and says, let us in; if you crack open the door, that's permission. Once you crack open the door, they can bust in. They have the legal right.

You don't open it.

But if you have children in the family who don't know them, that can lead to your rights being violated. So it's important for the whole family to have this know-your-rights education.

I just want to share something with you that Trump Border Czar, Tom Homan, said in a CNN interview: He said that know your rights knowledge is making it very difficult to carry out his mandate. So we're doubling down and we're going to do as much Know-Your-Rights education as we can.

What can you do?

I'm just going to rattle off some things, and then I'll stop so we can have Q&A.

The Rapid Response Network that exists, the one that Arcenio talked about, we're part of the steering committee with 805 UndocuFund and MICOP. We need volunteers to be trained as legal observers. Legal observers show up when ICE is active in the field and witness what's happening, ensuring people's human rights are protected. If they're violated, it’s caught on film.

We train people to keep their safe distance. We only want people who are citizens to do this. We need more volunteers to be trained and be available to show up.

The other major part of being a volunteer legal observer is supporting families. We help them find legal resources when we can. Sometimes we give rides.

We had a case last week where somebody's child was suddenly abandoned because they had been arrested by ICE. We had to pick up the child and take them to a safe place.

So if you're interested in becoming an observer, in getting trained, and doing what you can as a legal observer, please contact us. We need more people, especially in the East County.

Keep your eye out for legislation, at the state level and the federal level, that helps protect the immigrant communities and support it. Let your electeds know.

We're going to Sacramento next week to advocate for a number of bills. One of them is called Assembly Bill 49, the California Safe Haven Schools and Childcare Act. This would be a state law that would prohibit immigration agents from entering schools without the approval of the superintendent or principal and without a duly signed warrant signed by a judge. We should pass that bill and others like it with community members’ support for electeds.

We're going to be meeting with Henry Stern and with Jacqui Irwin to ask them to support this bill. If they waffle, we're going to be calling on community members to follow them and email them, and let them know this is important to people who live here.

Follow immigrant rights organizations, including those that are mounting lawsuits against the Trump administration. The court system is one of the main buffers we still have against the unfettered steamroller that is trying to roll out across the country.

And I see some ACLU people here. ACLU is one of the many organizations that's doing heroic work in the courts.

I also want to mention something. I met Laura through a coalition we're both part of, called ICE Out of California. This coalition was the driving force behind the laws —The Trust Act, the Truth Act, and SB54, the California Values Act. This coalition is statewide, it is powerful, and we are working still to promote, build at the state level and to help make our state of California a safer, more welcoming place for immigrants to live in peace with their families.

One of the other major activities of this coalition is what we call individual freedom campaigns. This is where individuals like Laura are seeking relief from being hunted by immigration.

And I want to mention that there are QR codes. Please scan them. Please scan them and follow the links. There's the opportunity to actively support these individual freedom campaigns.

And I want to mention one more to you specifically. And it's a freedom campaign right now to urge Governor Newsom to pardon an individual named Sithy Bin. That's S-I-T-H-Y B-I-N.

Google his name, Sithy Bin. You will see his story.

Oh, and you will find the links to his pardon campaign on those QR codes.

Sithy Bin. I had the honor of meeting him, like Laura and so many others, who are labeled by people who don't know them as criminals. He's an amazing individual who many of us would be blessed to have as our neighbor. A community leader who is working to make California better, to be a mentor, to be a leader, and someone who deserves to stay here with his family. Read his story, sign the petition, and follow his individual freedom campaigns.

A couple more things, and then, okay, I want everyone to be thoughtful.

I'm sure we are, but it's worth repeating about the lack of the news.

Calling a person an “illegal” implies that their very existence somehow violates the law. No human being is illegal. Terms like this erase people’s humanity and are used to justify their mistreatment, abuse, and exclusion.

The same thing applies to people who've been convicted of a crime and incarcerated. When we label people with terms like criminal, felon, and convict, their identities as human beings are being erased.

We should call them mother, father, daughter, son. People's humanity should come first.

This is really important because something we hear all the time, including from Democrats, is, well, if they're immigrants and they're criminals, do you want them here?

Well, let me tell you a little bit about myself.

When I was a teenager, I started experimenting with drugs when I was 15. By the time I was 16, I was a hardcore drug addict, and I dropped out of high school. And soon after that, I was convicted of committing crimes and incarcerated. Unlike Laura, who was convicted of something she didn't do, I did the crime, and I was incarcerated. And I'm not going to talk about what I did as a teenager, because I am still ashamed.

But I found recovery. I found 12-step programs. I found sobriety. I've been able to live a life of productivity, of spirituality, of becoming a father, and being able to do something like work with Buen Vecino.

But if I hadn't been born in the United States as a citizen here, I'd be one of the criminals that so many people in the media and our politics would say, the only difference between me and Laura is where we were born.

When you hear people talking about getting immigrant criminals out of here, please, think of Laura. Think of me. Think of human beings. Look up the story of Sithy Bin. Think of Sithy.

John Chiang, Moderator:

I think you get the sense of urgency that we have, especially with the latest updates.

Willie gave us a lot of homework for those of you who are listening to quite a few takeaways

But for the panelists, can you give like one or two separate takeaways, and then we'll take questions.

Dr. José M. Alamillo:

Resist. We need to resist and we need to push back against what's happening in our country.

Become a member of the ACLU. Right now is the moment, because our rights and much liberty are being taken away.

So I would say that we need to resist and help our neighbors out.

Gabriella Navarro-Busch, Esq.:

What I would say, ¡si se puede! I mean, it’s something, it's a rallying cry that was started by Cesar Chavez, and I think we can continue it.

Thank you again for being here.

Arcenio Lopez, Organizer:

Last week, a labor leading organizer was detained in Washington. That's another kind of reality, such a reality check for those who are fighting for human rights, are also now being tagged as criminals.

And we are being also the targeted. And they're coming after us.

So my advice is to get to know your neighbors, to get to know your nonprofits, organizations, who are doing social justice work, do more human rights work, and connect, sign up for their newsletter, reach out, and ask how can I support?

Because it's real. How do you trust?

And I don't want to say this, but hopefully I won’t be saying that probably one of our organizers, including myself, will be detained. So I really appreciate the books and how you were telling the stories on how the real life happens in the region.

Because that's exactly what happens. I already was there when I was crossing the border, and I was feeling like I was not a human being, that I was the most awful criminal person, and the humanity side of it was missing and was not really treated as a human being.

There's a lot we can do, just that's my advice: just get connected to your non-profits, reach out, there's tons of ways you can support us in the movement. This is a movement. We as native indigenous people, we know that we need to be part of the resistance, and we need you to be part of the resistance. We need you.

Laura, Organizer:

I echo what everyone has already said, so get connected.

And then also my invitation earlier to become an accomplice, but also just research and education is like so important, right?

Because once you become part of it, once you start taking these steps and you start plugging into your local ACLU, your local nonprofit, and you start doing the work, there's going to be adversaries, right?

And we don't, we're all of us on this panel, it's not just like an everyday affair. Like it's: we have to face opposition every single day, whether it's from our administration, whether it's from our community, whether it's from our neighbors, sometimes it's within our own families.

And so we need to be ready to answer those questions, like our moderator said earlier, right? What do you say when someone says, So what do you mean? Do you want open borders? And be ready to defend your conditions.

It's not just about like, you know, jumping in and doing something because it feels good, but it's really educating yourself about what you're doing so that you're able to respond to the people who are going to attack your position.

Willie Lubka, Organizer:

I'm going to add two more things.

We need to get to work now in preparation for the 2026 election. That means registering young voters. If young people vote in higher numbers, things will change.

We need to engage people in what's called civic engagement. Follow what your city council is doing. Get involved, understand that our voice matters, and be engaged. It's not just voting, it's understanding what people are accountable to after being elected and being engaged.

And I want to especially lift up youth leadership development.

One more thing. One more thing.

I just want to respond to the gentleman with a red hat. It's not a MAGA hat. The hat has a message on it that expresses how a lot of us feel. It’s a “We’re Fucked” hat.

We have to attend to our spiritual and emotional well-being under the environment we’re in right now. It is so easy to feel it.

Day by day, we have to maintain hope, strength, faith, and commitment.

For me, one way I do that is by associating with heroes like these folks.

Sarah Towle, Author:

I just think it's also important to keep in mind that when they came after our compañero in Washington, Leo?

Arcenio Lopez, Organizer:

Leo.

Sarah Towle, Author:

When they come after heroes, like Leo, chipping away at his due process protections, they are chipping away at our due process protections.

So we need to stand up today because when they come after us, if we don't stand up for them, there will be no one left taking care of our protections.

Willie Lubka, Organizer:

It is all of us.

It is a community, a group.

And we need to all be 100% in on this.

Thank you very much, everyone.