DSA Feed
This is a feed aggregator that collects news and updates from DSA chapters, national working groups and committees, and our publications all in one convenient place. Updated every day at 8AM, 12PM, 4PM, and 8PM UTC.
JCTU Rent Strike
ETOC Cadre News:
Jersey City tenants declare a rent strike at 5 separate buildings on the city’s west side
FROM HUDSON COUNTY VIEW: Jersey City tenants declared a rent strike at five separate buildings on the city’s west side, alleging issues ranging from neglect, pests, and no on site building superintendent.
“They just don’t care to fix anything. The kitchen floor is in awful shape. They put some screws in the kitchen floor tile so that they don’t move around too much. It’s an awful thing. We just gotta go on strike to get what we want,” Charlie, a tenant at 154 Belmont Ave. where a rally was held last week who declined to give his last name, said.
“I’ve been living in this building 40 years. Nothing gets done, they want me to get out. Rats, mice, holes in the bottom, holes on top, and they still have the nerve to make me pay for water,” added fellow building tenant Luneste Alexender.
429 Bergen Ave., on rent strike since November, was joined this month by 150 and 154 Belmont Ave., also owned by Amir Ben-Yohanon. The Belmont buildings were previously without heat in the winter of 2024 along with 35 Kensington Ave., as HCV first reported.
Ben-Yohanon owns these buildings through a separate LLC from 429 Bergen Ave., a common practice among Jersey City landlords who may have dozens of LLCs obscuring their real estate portfolio in the city.
Tenants at 19 and 25 Kensington Ave. are also withholding rent from Optimum Properties.
“I learned about this building a while ago but just recently I just learned the severity of how people are living here. I’m talking rats biting peoples’ toes, what looks like cracks in drooping walls,” Bergen Grand Tenants Association President Liv Malone declared at the rally.
A tenant in the crowd interjected that the building at 429 Bergen Ave. has “water coming in everywhere.”
“So I’ve just really enjoyed getting to know everyone who lives here and thinking about how they can get to live in a home that’s safe and that’s clean. Because I can promise you that the landlord that we share, Amir Ben-Yohanon, does not live like this and the only way that that will change is by the people living here deciding it’s done and that’s what you guys are doing here,” Malone concluded.
Eli King, an organizer with Jersey City Tenants Union, echoed that sentiment without mentioning calling out any specific landlords.
“Landlords know their power and they’re not afraid to use it, to neglect basic living standards in buildings they own to maximize the profit from their investment. Tenants are coming together and using our power: there’s more of us than there are of them and every dollar of those profits is money that we work for,” he asserted.
“Both of these owners own massive portfolios in the city and we’re not going to stop with these buildings or with these landlords. Anyone who is ready to get organized and fight back against their landlord, come talk to us.”
Ben-Yohanon did not return an email seeking comment on Sunday, while Optimum Properties could not be reached for comment.
Flicking the Switch on Flock
[[{“value”:”
By: Reid Jackson
BOSTON – On September 16, Boston announced the end of its contract with Flock Safety after uncovering the company sharing local data with outside law enforcement.
If this is shocking news to you, you may be a Boston City Councilmember: “Boston City Councilor Ben Weber said he was disappointed to see the agency was sharing data.”
Boston is now the latest – and largest – city in New England to find out the hard way that Flock cameras are more trouble than they’re worth. The cancellation is the latest but not the first. While City Hall can be given a crumb of credit for doing the bare minimum and shelving the contract once the threat to data security became evident, it’s strange that the eight separate cases of cops misusing Flock cameras primarily to stalk former partners did not incentivize City Council to act. It’s also hard to excuse Flock violating the data sharing policy despite being strictly forbidden by the city’s contract:
“When the Boston Police Department discovered that a Flock data-sharing function had been enabled despite a clear, contractual agreement prohibiting its use, BPD immediately directed the vendor to disable it,” the city and the Boston Police Department said in a joint statement on WCVB 5. “The city has since ended all use of Flock and will not use its services going forward.”
The public can watch city officials and police run headfirst into this laughable self-own, considering the reputation of Automated License Plate Readers across the country. The public perception of state-approved spy cameras is exactly what you think it is, and according to some organizers in the Metrowest region, exactly the weapon this
Bobbie, a Framingham resident and member of the Metrowest Neighborhood Group of the Boston chapter of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), has been present at every step of the process of the push to get Flock cameras not just removed, but outright banned in her town.
FRAMINGHAM – The Metrowest area of Framingham and Marlborough has the largest population of Brazilian immigrants in the state, which has opened the towns up to become the main targets of ICE in the region. The movement to target surveillance technology arose from organizers within the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of MA, after shifting from a focus on ICE verification training that characterized much of LUCE’s activity in 2025.
Immigrant justice organizers were aware of ICE’s use of data from cameras like Flock’s to coordinate kidnappings. According to Bobbie:
There was a lot of concern that ICE could have access to this technology to identify and kidnap our neighbors, and that the federal admin could use it to stalk activists. Plus, police forces from outside of Massachusetts could use it to track citizens looking for healthcare across state lines, which we had already seen proof of in [LUCE] reporting.
Bobbie said the first and most crucial step of their crusade against Framingham’s Flock program was to gather information, especially of the actual number of cameras in the city’s limits. This was a task that was only possible with the coordination of Framingham residents who mapped out everywhere they could find a camera on a city street, in order to accurately measure the success of the campaign. Framingham residents report using the website deflock.me to identify the cameras, as well as driving to each spot to visually confirm their location in town.
Next was the ordinary avenues of public pressure on the local government. Despite the City Council’s sidestepping and shifting of responsibility between the police chief and the mayor, organizers successfully managed to land a date for a public hearing with a Flock official in Spring 2026 through a Framingham City Councilmember arranging a public forum to ask questions of a company representative. Coalition members held the representative’s feet to the fire as they attempted to dodge questions and explain away the infringements of residents’ civil liberties.
Depending on the city leadership, campaigns here have two choices: extra pressure or public protest. Power-mapping is the strategic tool most helpful here, to determine the power relations unique to the municipality. Longer fought battles have been the case in similar campaigns against the much better funded data center projects such as the Dungeon in Lowell, which recently had its expansion paused by a state judge.
Alternatively, in towns like Natick or Waltham, the town does not need an excuse to do away with a surveillance program. In Natick’s example, the project was not made known to the public or voted on by the Town Meeting or Select Board. Natick voted unanimously to end the program this February, and Waltham shut their cameras down just this month.
For many of these towns, including Framingham’s removal of cameras this June, this marks only the first step. Since the state legislation is lagging behind this issue, municipalities are forced to set their own rules – and be pressured as organizing targets – for surveillance in their neighborhoods case-by-case.
[When we started this campaign]… a few of our organizers initially thought we would only get regulation and not a full ban,” Bobbie said. “Even though we all wanted a ban… we learned we had more support on the full council for a full ban… after a ton of public comment from our organizers.
Despite the reservations of more entrenched institutions, expanding the horizons of the politically possible is the organizers’ role. The fight against mass surveillance will be fought town-by-town, but with the help of a broad coalition like LUCE, Mass 50501, and DSA, the tools of one successful campaign can easily be repurposed for use in other towns, or in other fights against encroaching tyranny in the American empire.
With Flock and other ALPR’s only becoming less and less popular, the tide is on the side of those fighting against accountability-free data collection.
Reid Jackson is a member of the Metrowest Neighborhood Group of Boston DSA and contributing writer for Working Mass.
The post Flicking the Switch on Flock appeared first on Working Mass.
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Buffalo DSA Leaders Meet With Rep. AOC
On Thursday, members of our Steering Committee and endorsed candidate Adam Bojak met privately with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. We were proud to share how we are building a durable, sustainable socialist project here, as well as share our hope to see Rep. AOC coordinate more strongly with the growing socialist bloc forming at every level of elected office. Afterward, a range of our chapter organizers joined Team AOC for their Project Reactivation event.
Regardless of what her political career holds, one thing is clear: Rep. AOC and her team would not have visited Buffalo, or prioritized a private sit-down with Buffalo DSA leaders, without the diligent work of our members. The foundation we’ve laid in healthcare organizing, labor solidarity, tenant suport, and electoral politics have put Buffalo DSA on the map.
The working class is hungry for political change, and our chapter is ready to lead the charge.
We look forward to leading discussions on this meeting, how our chapter might relate to a future AOC candidacy, and more at our Oct. 17 General Body Meeting. We will also hold our first of many discussions on the 2028 Presidential Election, and DSA’s role within that.
Join DSA to shape our strategy in and out of electoral politics, to build real working class power.
An Immigrant Socialist-in-office Returns to a Country in Crisis
New York Assemblymember Diana Moreno discusses the collapse into violence of her native Ecuador with U.S. collusion.
The post An Immigrant Socialist-in-office Returns to a Country in Crisis appeared first on Democratic Left.
MoCo DSA September Newsletter
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The post MoCo DSA September Newsletter appeared first on .
Trump’s Favorite Communist Just Got A Lot More Charming
The Chamber of Commerce prepares for war, DoorDash gets dashed, and more.
"Red All Over," Democratic Left’s occasional round-up of media coverage of DSA.
The post Trump’s Favorite Communist Just Got A Lot More Charming appeared first on Democratic Left.
The San Jose Execution
This statement was written by members of the Silicon Valley DSA Liberation and Justice Working Group.
A Tragedy of Systemic Violence
The events that unfolded on January 21st, 2026, in San Jose, California, serve as a chilling, visceral testament to the enduring crisis of systemic violence against Black lives in America. Mohamed Husein was a son, a brother, and a father murdered in cold blood for fleeing from San Jose Police Department officers to avoid arrest for a crime spree. He was literally running for his life, attempting to escape a system that, for far too many, equates criminality with a death sentence.
The Lethal Pursuit
While running away, Mohamed Husein was struck by gunshots that erupted from multiple officers. These bullets found their mark, and Mohamed collapsed onto the street. What happened next was incomprehensible brutality that led to San Jose Police Department SUV, purportedly an instrument of public safety, barreled over his prone body, treating a human life as nothing more than an unseen speed bump.
The scene did not end there as it devolved into a firing squad. Gunfire filled the air as the officers discharged their weapons into Mohamed’s already lifeless body that lay in the street. Other than involuntary final jerks of his limbs, the bullets still traveled through his motionless body. This incident is a prime example of a public execution that is a systemic pattern of violence against Black and Brown communities nationwide.
State Sanctioned Lynchings: A Grim American Tradition
The ruthless slaying of Black people in public view is a grim tradition as old as the United States itself. Historically, the suffering and exploitation of Black and Brown people laid the foundation for America, a parasitic relationship that continues to stunt the growth and potential of these communities. These continued acts of violence against Black and Brown folk must be recognized for what they are: lynchings. Calling them anything else is doing a disservice to those who have fallen at the hands of this broken system, and minimizes the true extent of harm caused to these communities.
These highly visible public lynchings have become so common that American society has grown desensitized to the spectacle of Black and Brown lives being extinguished in plain sight. This normalization of violence mirrors the acceptance of historical lynchings in earlier eras, where the public display of Black death served as a tool of terror, social control, and grotesque entertainment.
Historically, lynchings served as social control, a threat to all Brown and Black folks who dared to defy the system. The ruling class knew that, without socially normalized lynching, their continued exploitation of Brown and Brown bodies would come to an end. Likewise, we today are inundated with reports of fatal encounters with the police, placing all blame on the victims. Society has become numb to this senseless violence and has begun to accept it as something that “just happens”.
Modern-day Lynchings in the Courtroom and the Street
Modern-day lynchings have occurred covertly within courtrooms across the nation, carried out under the pretexts of “law and order” and “crime and punishment.” These lynchings have inured the public to the violence the police inflict. Members of the justice system have long used this regime of criminalization as an excuse to manipulate, amend, and blatantly violate the very laws they swore to uphold. Society has widely accepted that law enforcement can, and will, operate outside the boundaries of the law they ostensibly uphold. History is full of examples where minor infractions have been systematically and lethally escalated into death sentences.
In the pre-Civil Rights Jim Crow era, social rules demanded subservience from Black folks, like stepping off sidewalks for white people, avoiding eye contact, or speaking informally. The punishment for violations was often brutal lynching rather than due process. The horrific 1943 murder of 15-year-old Willie James Howard in Florida, killed for the “crime” of giving a white girl an innocent Christmas card, illustrates how minor interactions were seen as deadly threats against the structure of white supremacy.
Despite being officially abolished, the spirit and consequence of these Jim Crow laws persist today. Recent victims include Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and George Floyd, who were murdered by the police for such minor alleged crimes as selling loose cigarettes, forgetting to use a turn signal, or using a fake $20 bill. Tragically, this list of victims continues to grow.
“Breaking the Law” as a Death Penalty Pretext
Today, “breaking the law” may as well lead to the death penalty. By claiming a law has been broken, law enforcement justify circumventing constitutionally guaranteed due process, allowing officers to act as judge, jury, and executioner in the streets.
Mohamed Husein was murdered because he was Black, and because the system has made it acceptable to extinguish Black lives, especially when they are alleged to have broken the law. In this country, Black folks are a target of systemic aggression, which is only amplified by a criminal allegation. Once law enforcement labels a victim a criminal, a deeply ingrained societal justification, “if they would not have committed the crime, they would not have been killed”, tacitly sanctions state-sponsored murder.
Demanding Accountability in Santa Clara County
This county, like others throughout the country, has historically been complacent during public lynchings and has shown a profound lack of regard for the victims of police violence. Excessive force is normalized, especially once a crime is attached to the life taken. In these cases, the Constitutional right of “innocent until proven guilty” becomes a hollow phrase.
Jeff Rosen, District Attorney in Santa Clara County, meant to be the community’s advocate for accountability, clearly has misplaced priorities. Instead of pursuing justice for Mohamed, his office sought the only felony charges against pro-Palestine college campus protests in the nation, targeting the Stanford 11;outrageously, he attempted to charge a student reporter, a clear first amendment violation. Rosen was so clearly compromised that his office was barred from re-trying the case since he used it as fundraising for his campaign and tried to paint the protestors as anti-semitic. Months later, there has not been any resolution or justice for the killing of Mohamed, as any elected DA should have achieved by now.
The force used in SJPD’s public execution of Mohamed Husein was undeniably excessive. District Attorney Jeff Rosen and his investigative team must bring criminal charges against all deputies involved: the officers shot into his back as he was running, the deputy who ran him over with the SUV, and all the officers who fired into his lifeless body afterwards. They must be prosecuted for taking the law into their own hands instead of following due process and for attempting to rationalize their racist, discriminatory, abhorrent behavior.
The Violation of Oath and Law
The San Jose Police Department failed to uphold their oath to protect and serve. They ignored their training and did not properly follow the escalation of force process. SJPD possesses several K9 units, which are specifically equipped and trained to apprehend someone fleeing a crime scene without resorting to lethal force, which they could have used to avoid needless death.
The punishment of death was not commensurate with the crime committed and would not have been the sentence in any court in California. SJPD broke the law when they executed Mohamed in the street, despite the death penalty moratorium imposed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019.
Mohamed Husein was denied the dignity of a fair legal process and his constitutionally guaranteed day in court. Instead, he was subjected to the death penalty, a punishment not administered in California, carried out by the very agents sworn to protect him.
Addressing the Mental Health Crisis
At the root of many instances of brutality by SJPD (and the justice system at large) is society’s failure to adequately support folks experiencing mental health crises, like Mohamed Husein, and many others suffering under this system. Mohahmed’s family informed the police that he was mentally unstable and would require additional assistance or, at least, a modicum of understanding, but even those preemptive warnings were not enough to guarantee safe, non-lethal interactions with law enforcement.
Husein’s story, along with those of many others before him, have fomented a deep mistrust in the justice system. Despite that, there seems to be little support for its victims. Many can afford neither the time nor the resources to seek help. Law enforcement often becomes involved when mental illness pushes people past their breaking point.
Police are often the first public resource utilized during a crisis. The SJPD has Mobile Crisis Response teams that can respond to mental health crises, but those teams lack crucial resources. Most officers are not adequately trained or equipped to deal with a mental health crisis in a safe manner. We must direct vital funding towards community care programs like the Mobile Crisis Response teams.
There are resources available for those seeking help, although visibility and funding for their work is often less than ideal. Within Santa Clara County, there are several organizations that offer accessible mental health support. 988 is the Santa Clara County Crisis and Suicide Hotline, available 24 hours, 7 days a week.
Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI) is another organization that provides low-to-no cost service available for those seeking help. Trust Mental Health is another organization that offers low-to-no cost services.
If you want to organize for a better world, join the Liberation and Justice Working Group of Silicon Valley DSA.
The post The San Jose Execution appeared first on Silicon Valley DSA.
What The Flock: Prison Populists and Palantyranny
There is a peculiar American humiliation in having to explain why you would like to buy groceries without helping populate a police database.
You needed eggs. Apparently, you also owed somebody a record of the trip.
Flock Safety’s roadside cameras collect license plates, vehicle characteristics, locations, and timestamps. Pass one and your car can become a searchable observation, available to an investigator with access. The company describes these as snapshots of public vehicle information. Such a modest word, snapshot. A birthday. A beach. Your car passing an intersection while you are trying to get through a Tuesday.
A collection of those observations has a different character. It lets an institution ask questions about where you have been. The public road supplies the material. You supply the life.
I resent the assumption that either is theirs for the taking. I resent being expected to prove that a trip deserves privacy, as though the default condition of citizenship were a standing invitation to inspect me. And I am tired of the little ceremony in which an industry takes something intimate, calls it data, and waits for the objection to become polite enough to ignore.
A road is not a confession.
On May 9, 2025, a Texas sheriff’s office searched a month of available records across 83,345 Flock cameras. The reason entered in the log was “had an abortion, search for female.” A woman’s partner had reported her. Investigators collected evidence and asked prosecutors whether they could charge her for taking the medication. They were told they could not.
The sheriff and Flock later presented the search as an effort to protect her welfare. But when the woman came to the sheriff’s office a week later, officers questioned her about the abortion and examined her messages. She had come to report a violent assault by the partner who had reported her. He was subsequently charged. The records obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation document that sequence.
Her need for protection had to get past the state’s interest in her pregnancy.
Nobody has to invent a dystopia around this. The investigator typed the reason into a box. The archive was there to be searched. That is what should stick in the throat: how little had to happen before so much became available.
The usual reassurances arrive with the weary regularity of an automated email. Your plate is already visible. The records are only kept for a while. The system has rules.
Yes, a plate is visible. So is a person sitting in a café. Being seen by another human being does not make your afternoon the rightful property of an investigative system. We used to understand the difference between passing someone on the street and following them home. The distinction does not evaporate because the follower has learned to invoice the city.
Flock defaults to thirty days of retention, adjustable by its customers. That is a rolling month of observations, refreshed as people keep driving. Deletion at one end does not stop collection at the other. The archive gets younger. The appetite does not.
And rules governing access begin after the first trespass: the decision to make ordinary movement available for inspection. A lock on the filing cabinet cannot supply permission to fill it. An audit can help expose a search that should never have happened; it cannot make the person unsearched.
We have been through enough tracking scandals, data-broker revelations, and solemn announcements of revised privacy policies to recognize this transaction. First the intrusion becomes possible. Then it becomes profitable. Eventually, we are invited to a discussion about transparency. By the time the public gets a seat, somebody else is collecting rent on the furniture.
Flock has given that familiar entitlement a place beside the road. It is a physical reminder, on the route to work or the way out of town, that somebody has decided your passing should leave a record. You can object at the meeting. Your car can be recorded on the way home.
The intimacy of a life often resides in its errands. The pharmacy visited twice. The address you have stopped going to. The place across town where you are trying, quietly, to become someone else. A location does not explain any of these things. It can nevertheless furnish an official with a question you never owed him an answer to.
Now consider the protest. In September 2026, 404 Media reported on a Flock webinar that used Denver’s No Kings demonstrations to illustrate event-monitoring tools, including live video. People gathering to contest power became an example of how to equip power to watch them.
Even the objection gets a product demo.
A demonstration is public because people want to be heard. That does not mean they have volunteered for an institution’s future questions about their associations. A crowd contains the newly persuaded, the unsure, the person attending for the first time, the person whose employer would disapprove. Democracy needs room for people to arrive before they have worked out what arrival might cost. Surveillance sends the bill ahead of time.
The prison populist has a solution to this discomfort: imagine that the machinery will always be aimed at somebody worse than you. Give the state more power over them, and it will give you peace. The bargain offers a little borrowed sovereignty, the pleasure of picturing yourself beside the officer rather than inside the search results.
Donald Trump put that bargain in the title of his January 2025 order, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” The order directed expanded state and local participation in immigration enforcement. The language does its work before any search begins. A population is cast as a threat; restraint becomes something to apologize for. All that remains is to equip the people promising to remove it.
The target changes. The equipment stays.
This is the prison’s political inheritance: divide people into those entitled to feel safe and those whose submission is supposed to supply the feeling. Then keep expanding the means of submission. A frightened public gets a spectacle of control. The people selling control get a recurring customer. The person who needs housing, treatment, or somewhere to escape a violent partner gets told the budget is complicated.
There is an actual corporate bridge between the cage and the cloud. GEO Group operates correctional and detention facilities; its subsidiary BI Incorporated provides electronic monitoring, supervision, and case management under ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program. GEO reported a renewed award for that work in September 2025. Confinement and monitoring are two lines of business under one roof.
An ankle monitor can be preferable to a cell. That comparison cannot tell us why a person should be monitored at all. When surveillance is imposed on someone who could otherwise remain free, the prison has expanded its reach while congratulating itself on opening the door.
Flock offers a more diffuse version of the presumption that people should be made continuously available to authority. No ankle bracelet required. The roadside does the collecting, and a reason to look backward can arrive later. Everyone captured in the archive helps stock the shelf, whether or not an investigator ever takes an interest.
There is serious money in stocking it. Flock’s March 2025 funding announcement named Founders Fund among the participants in a $275 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Peter Thiel, associated with Founders Fund and a co-founder of Palantir, wrote in 2009: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
Whose freedom? The freedom to build the apparatus, certainly. The freedom to refuse it appears to be causing considerably more trouble. Small-government enthusiasm becomes exquisitely selective when the government has a purchase order. The state must keep its filthy hands off the entrepreneur and its eyes on everybody else.
Palantir makes software for turning institutional knowledge into action. ICE’s April 2025 award of $30 million for ImmigrationOS specified work on identifying and prioritizing people for apprehension, tracking departures, and managing removals. In January 2026, 404 Media published a user guide for ELITE, another Palantir tool used by ICE, describing maps, dossiers, and confidence scores estimating the reliability of people’s addresses.
Confidence scores on where you sleep.
An address can be correct and the purpose of finding it abhorrent. AI’s most useful contribution to an authoritarian project may be immaculate obedience: find the person, sort the records, save the official some time. The machine need never develop a taste for cruelty. There is a customer for that.
Palantyranny is the rule of the unaccountable over the searchable. It joins the corporation’s power to classify with the state’s power to compel, making a person’s life increasingly visible to authorities whose decisions remain difficult to examine or resist. Your movements become their evidence. Their assumptions become your problem. The machinery may know where you sleep without knowing why you are afraid—and still help decide who comes to your door. Its defining achievement is this unequal exchange: power acquires a detailed account of your life while owing you scarcely an account of itself.
Flock and Palantir occupy different parts of this business. What joins the camera to the dossier politically is the claim on your availability: your movements held ready, your circumstances made useful, your life kept within reach. More capable software makes that reach cheaper to exercise. It does nothing to make it deserved.
You do not owe Flock a useful Tuesday. You do not owe a sheriff an interesting past.
“I have nothing to hide” accepts the wrong obligation. It offers to earn privacy through good behavior. But freedom is not a prize awarded after an inspection, and innocence is no promise that the inspector will leave you alone. The ability to go about your life must survive an official’s curiosity, a contractor’s sales target, and the next election.
Nor does the injury wait for an arrest. Sociologist Sarah Brayne’s 2014 research found an association between criminal-justice contact and reduced attachment to record-keeping institutions such as medical care, banks, formal employment, and education. The same pattern did not appear for civic and religious participation. Her account of “system avoidance” identifies a frightening possibility: people can retreat from the institutions they need because those institutions make them visible.
Her study concerned criminal-justice contact. The question it leaves beside a roadside camera is what people will give up to avoid the attention they fear. The appointment postponed. The meeting missed. The journey reconsidered until staying home feels like a decision freely made.
That last trick is especially foul. Power sets the conditions; you do the shrinking. There may never be an order to disobey or a charge to contest. Just a smaller radius in which to be yourself.
So no, the answer is not to design a more considerate dragnet. The answer is to stop collecting ordinary lives against the possibility that somebody powerful will want them later. End the contracts for indiscriminate movement surveillance. Require deletion of the accumulated records and verification that it happened. Close the routes through which another agency or a commercial broker can supply what a community has refused to collect. A particular investigation needs a particular justification. The rest of us are not its raw material.
Locally, that means finding the renewal date, demanding the contract, and making the council defend the decision in public. It means asking for removal without allowing the conversation to collapse into a tutorial on settings. A surveillance company is a business. It can lose a customer. We do not have to preserve its revenue stream as a constitutional courtesy.
And when the presentation returns to how much the system could know, bring the argument back to what it has no right to know. The errands, the friendships, the private repair work of a human life. The destination that matters desperately to you. The destination that does not matter at all.
You went somewhere.
None of their business.
***
This essay was first published on the author’s Substack, The Armory, on September 10, 2026. It is reprinted here with the author’s permission.
The post What The Flock: Prison Populists and Palantyranny appeared first on Pine & Roses.
Texas DSA Statement on ICE Shooting of Wilber Rafael Garces Perez
En español/In Spanish:
Declaración de DSA de Texas sobre el tiroteo de ICE contra Wilber Rafael Garces Perez
El domingo 20 de septiembre de 2026, agentes de ICE embistieron dos veces el auto de Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, residente de Austin, y luego le dispararon por la espalda mientras aún se encontraba dentro del vehículo. Los agentes de ICE, junto con oficiales del Departamento de Seguridad Pública de Texas (DPS) y de la Policía de Austin (APD), lo esposaron y trasladaron al Centro Médico Dell Seton, donde ni recibió atención médica integral ni se le extrajo la bala alojada cerca de su columna vertebral, antes de ser devuelto a la custodia de ICE apenas unas horas después de haber sido disparado. El personal de seguridad del hospital se negó a permitir que la esposa o el abogado del Sr. Garces Perez lo visitara y tampoco confirmó su estado. Durante varias horas, su familia creyó que ICE lo había matado.
Los agentes de ICE llevaron al Sr. Garces Perez al Centro de Detención de Pearsall, donde lo obligaron a dormir en el piso, en condiciones de frío extremo, mientras sufría un dolor inmenso por la bala que aún no le habían extraído. Se le impidió hablar con su familia o su abogado durante casi 24 horas. Repentinamente las protestas estallaron en el lugar del tiroteo y se prolongaron hasta altas horas de la noche. Agentes de APD y de DPS brindaron cobertura a los agentes de ICE y de Investigaciones de Seguridad Nacional (HSI) para asegurar la escena. Dispararon balas de pimienta contra los manifestantes, hiriendo a varios, incluido un niño de 14 años a quien alcanzaron en la cara, lo que le provocó vómitos.
Esto nos recuerda un incidente similar ocurrido hace dos meses, cuando agentes de ICE dispararon y mataron a Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, residente de Houston, mientras se dirigía al trabajo. Tampoco olvidemos que en marzo del año pasado, ICE mató a Ruben Ray Martinez en South Padre Island, y el gobierno federal ocultó la verdad sobre la participación de ICE durante más de un año. Texas se ve sacudido por estas pérdidas y muchas más, desde los secuestros de miembros de la comunidad en sus propios hogares hasta la intimidación de los trabajadores y sus familias.
Para los texanos, la violencia de la aplicación de las leyes de inmigración forma parte del tejido de la vida cotidiana. Leyes estatales como la Ley del Senado 4 (SB 4, 2017), la Ley del Senado 4 (SB 4, 2023) y la Ley del Senado 8 (SB 8) despojan a las comunidades locales del poder para promulgar políticas de ciudades santuario y obligan a los sheriffs de los condados a colaborar abiertamente con ICE a través de los acuerdos 287(g). Otras leyes, como la Ley de la Cámara de Representantes 1900 (HB 1900) y la Ley de la Cámara de Representantes 2127 (“Death Star Bill” HB 2127), eliminan incluso la posibilidad de autonomía municipal para las ciudades de Texas al quitarles la facultad de reducir los presupuestos policiales o establecer regulaciones sobre políticas locales de seguridad laboral, protección ambiental y decisiones económicas. Además, el gobernador Greg Abbott lanzó la “Operación Lone Star” en 2021, creando de hecho una versión paralela de la Patrulla Fronteriza de EE. UU. dirigida por el estado de Texas. Todas estas leyes han sido aprobadas rápidamente a través de la legislatura estatal fascista, dominada por los republicanos, en los últimos 10 años. De esa forma prepararon el terreno para la violencia que seguimos viendo hoy en día.
En primer lugar, queremos hacernos eco de las demandas de la familia y los abogados de Garces Perez:
- La liberación INMEDIATA de Wilber Rafael Garces Perez;
- Una investigación independiente y local del incidente, en la que las autoridades locales, incluido el fiscal de distrito, Jose Garza, tengan acceso total a las pruebas y a los testigos, así como la capacidad de investigar y procesar cualquier delito penal cometido por agentes federales;
- La divulgación de todas las grabaciones relacionadas con el tiroteo, así como la identificación pública del autor de los disparos y la exigencia de que permanezca en el estado y se someta a la investigación;
- El fin de las tácticas violentas e ilegales utilizadas por los agentes de ICE, incluyendo el uso de sus vehículos como armas, disparar contra o desde vehículos en movimiento, y las cuotas de arrestos que impulsan esta violencia;
- El fin de los acuerdos 287(g) en todos los niveles del gobierno local y estatal, incluyendo el DPS, y el fin de la colaboración del DPS con los agentes de ICE en controles de tráfico basados en perfiles raciales;
- La expulsión de ICE fuera de Austin. Abolir ICE.
Como socialistas en Texas, sabemos desde hace tiempo que nuestro estado es la primera línea de defensa contra las políticas fascistas y supremacistas del gobierno. Las secciones de DSA en todo Texas ya han planteado estas demandas. Hemos publicado declaraciones similares en todo el estado durante el último año, destacando cada vez más el sufrimiento de nuestros vecinos, el caos de la violencia estatal y la desesperación de nuestras comunidades por deshacerse de ICE. Este tiroteo debe ser el último.
Ahora es el momento de intensificar nuestras demandas, no de mostrar cobardía ni inacción. Podemos y debemos contraatacar en todos los niveles de poder que tenemos. Por lo tanto, además exigimos lo siguiente:
- El Concejo Municipal de Austin y el de TODAS las ciudades y condados de Texas deben oponerse a las leyes estatales inconstitucionales, reintroducir las políticas de “ciudades santuario” y CESAR y NEGARSE a cualquier tipo de colaboración en la aplicación de las leyes de inmigración;
- La legislatura estatal de Texas debe DEROGAR las leyes estatales que impiden que las ciudades se gobiernen a sí mismas (como la SB 4 (2017), la SB 4 (2023), la SB 8, la HB 1900 y la HB 2127) y devolver el control local a los gobiernos locales;
- El gobernador debe PONER FIN a la Operación Lone Star y utilizar los miles de millones de dólares de los contribuyentes que se desperdician para financiar a las comunidades;
- Las ciudades y condados de Texas deben PROHIBIR en todo el estado toda la tecnología de vigilancia basada en inteligencia artificial, como los lectores automáticos de placas (ALPR), que se utilizan DIARIAMENTE para rastrear y arrestar a miembros de nuestra comunidad, y que se proporcionan a través de contratos con Flock, Axon y otras empresas;
- El gobierno federal debe DETENER todas las deportaciones de inmediato y reunir a todas las familias que han sido separadas por la fuerza;
- Debemos ABOLIR el sistema violento de control migratorio y establecer una vía significativa hacia la ciudadanía para todos aquellos que consideran a Estados Unidos su hogar;
- Tenemos que ABOLIR ICE, el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS) y el Servicio de Protección Fronteriza (CBP).
Hacemos un llamado a nuestros miembros, compañeros de trabajo y vecinos para que sigan sumándose a las protestas y vigilias espontáneas en apoyo a Wilber Rafael Garces Perez. ¡Debemos seguir en las calles y continuar organizándonos en nuestros lugares de trabajo y en nuestros vecindarios para mantener a ICE fuera!
CHINGA LA MIGRA
SOLIDARIDAD POR SIEMPRE
Firmado por:
- Austin DSA
- San Antonio DSA
- Houston DSA
- Rio Grande Valley DSA
- DSA North Texas
- UT San Antonio YDSA
- Paso del Norte DSA
- Corpus Christi DSA
- Fort Worth DSA
En Inglés/In English:
On Sunday, September 20, 2026, ICE agents rammed Austin resident Wilber Rafael Garces Perez’s car twice and then shot him in the back while he was still in his vehicle. ICE agents, alongside Texas DPS and Austin Police officers handcuffed him and took him to Dell Seton Medical Center, where he was barely given medical aid and the bullet lodged near his spine was not removed, before being released back into ICE custody mere hours after being shot. Hospital security refused to allow Mr. Garces Perez’s wife or lawyer to see him, and refused to confirm his condition. For several hours, his family believed that ICE had killed him.
ICE agents took Mr. Garces Perez to South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, Texas where he was forced to sleep on the floor, in extreme cold, while suffering immense pain due to the still-unremoved bullet. He was kept from speaking to his family or attorney for almost 24 hours. Almost immediately, protests erupted at the scene of the shooting and lasted long into the night. APD and DPS officers provided cover for ICE agents and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to secure the scene. They fired pepper balls at protestors, injuring several, including a 14-year-old boy who they struck in the face making him vomit.
We are reminded of a similar incident two months ago, when ICE agents shot and killed Houston resident Lorenzo Salgado Araujo on his way to work. Or in March of last year, when ICE killed Ruben Ray Martinez in South Padre Island, and the federal government covered up the truth of ICE’s involvement for over a year. Texas is reeling from these losses and more, from the abductions of community members from their homes to the terrorization of working people and their families.
For Texans, the violence of immigration enforcement is woven into the fabric of daily life. State laws like SB 4 (2017), SB 4 (2023), and SB 8 strip local communities of their power to enact sanctuary city policies and mandate county sheriffs’ open collaboration with ICE through 287(g) agreements. Others, like HB 1900 and the so-called “Death Star Bill” (HB 2127), remove even the possibility of home rule for Texas cities by taking away their power to lower police budgets or set regulations on local labor safety policies, environmental protections, and economic decisions. Further, Governor Greg Abbott launched “Operation Lone Star” in 2021, effectively creating a parallel version of U.S. border patrol run by the State of Texas. All of these laws have been swiftly passed through the fascistic, Republican-dominated state legislature in the last 10 years. They set the stage for the violence we continue to see today.
We first wish to echo the demands by Garces Perez’s family and attorneys:
- The IMMEDIATE release of Wilber Rafael Garces Perez;
- An independent and local investigation of the incident, with local law enforcement, including D.A. José Garza, given full access to evidence and witnesses and the capacity to investigate and prosecute any criminal offenses by federal agents;
- The release of all footage related to the shooting, as well as publicly identifying the shooter and requiring that he stay in the state and face investigation;
- An end to violent and unlawful tactics used by ICE agents, including using their vehicles as weapons, shooting at or in moving vehicles, and the arrest quotas that drive this violence;
- An end to 287(g) agreements at all levels of local and state government, including Texas DPS, and an end to DPS assisting ICE agents with racially-profiled traffic stops;
- ICE out of Austin. Abolish ICE.
As socialists in Texas, we have long known that our state is the front line in the struggle against fascist, white nationalist policies in government. DSA chapters across Texas have made these demands before. We have put out similar statements across the state over the last year, each time highlighting the pain of our neighbors, the chaos of state violence, and the desperation of our communities to get ICE out, full stop. This latest shooting must be the last.
Now is the time for an escalation of demands, not cowardice or inaction. We can and must fight back, at every level of power we hold. Therefore, we further demand:
- Austin City Council and ALL Texas cities and counties must push back against unconstitutional state laws, reintroduce Sanctuary City policies, and CEASE and REFUSE any and all collaboration on immigration enforcement;
- The Texas state legislature must REPEAL state laws that prevent cities from governing themselves (like SB 4 (2017), SB 4 (2023), SB 8, HB 1900, and HB 2127) and return local control to local governments;
- The governor must END Operation Lone Star and use the billions of wasted taxpayer dollars to fund communities instead;
- Texas cities and counties must BAN all AI surveillance tech like automated license plate readers (ALPRs) across the state that are used DAILY to track and arrest our community members, provided through contracts with Flock, Axon, and other companies;
- The federal government must HALT all deportations now and reunite all the families who have been forcibly separated;
- We must ABOLISH the current violent immigration enforcement system and instead establish a new system that includes a meaningful pathway to citizenship for all those who call the United States home. Abolish ICE. Abolish CBP. Abolish DHS.
We call on our members, our coworkers, and our neighbors to continue joining the organic protests and vigils held in support of Wilber Rafael Garces Perez. We must remain in the streets and continue organizing our workplaces and our neighborhoods to keep ICE out!
FUCK ICE
CHINGA LA MIGRA
SOLIDARITY FOREVER
Signed:
- Austin DSA
- San Antonio DSA
- Houston DSA
- Rio Grande Valley DSA
- DSA North Texas
- UT San Antonio YDSA
- Paso del Norte DSA
- Corpus Christi DSA
- Fort Worth DSA
The post Texas DSA Statement on ICE Shooting of Wilber Rafael Garces Perez first appeared on Red Fault.
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The post “You Can’t Have an Inclusive and Diverse City When the Police Engage in Racist Practices” appeared first on Democratic Left.