Atlanta DSA condemns the murder of Renee Good, the violence ICE has brought to Minneapolis and other communities, and the racist, authoritarian immigration enforcement regime that made this killing possible.
On January 7th, 2026, ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis while she was exercising her right to protest. This comes just days after an ICE agent murdered Keith Porter, a black man, in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve. ICE, created within the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11, has long used raids, detention, and deportation to terrorize black, brown, and immigrant communities, facilitating systematic human rights abuses and deaths. ICE does not keep people safe; it cages and kills them. Today, ICE functions as the secret police force of an increasingly authoritarian state, granting masked armed agents sweeping powers to strongarm local governments and surveil, harass, and arbitrarily arrest working-class people.
The murder of Renee Good — an unarmed activist peacefully observing ICE operations — shows an agency that treats public scrutiny as a threat to be eliminated. ICE’s immigration enforcement operations must be halted immediately. ICE must be stripped of funding, its detention network dismantled, its political power broken, and the agency itself abolished. In its place, this country must build a system rooted in unconditional respect for migrants’ human rights, family unity, and free movement—not militarized borders and mass incarceration.
We are reminded of the similar killing of Tortuguita by the Georgia State Patrol three years ago during an extended campaign to protect vital forest and public space. The red thread of violence weaved between local, state, and federal law enforcement on our bodies, especially queer and black and brown bodies, strangles us from Minnesota to Georgia. Our collective resistance inflames these tools of capital because it reminds us that our liberation comes when we are all free.
Atlanta DSA stands in solidarity with Renee Good’s family, with immigrant communities in Minneapolis, Atlanta, and across the country, and with all those resisting ICE violence. Twin Cities DSA is joining a broad coalition of unions and community groups to call for a day of action on January 23rd to shut down the city and demand that ICE get OUT of Minnesota! We encourage our communities to donate to the grassroots organizations on the front lines organizing resistance against ICE, including Tending the Soil in Minnesota and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights. On Tuesday, January 20th, the DSA National Labor Commission is hosting a national call and phone bank in support of the January 23rd day of action.
We call on our members, our labor and community allies, and elected officials to join us in the struggle to defund, disarm, and abolish ICE, and for ICE to leave immigrant communities in Minneapolis and nationwide immediately, because the only people qualified to protect these communities are the citizens, the workers, the parents, and the families who live in them.
Enjoy your January National Political Committee (NPC) newsletter! Our NPC is an elected 27-person body (including both YDSA Co-Chairs) which functions as the board of directors of DSA. This month, melting ICE, standing against militarism, volunteer opportunities, and more!
Next week is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. His internationalist vision is more crucial than ever. In his pivotal “Beyond Vietnam” speech, Dr. King said “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Today, the US is in a zombie state. Our government’s military budget soars past $1 trillion, and the ICE budget balloons larger than the militaries of most other countries — all while basic social services are cut for millions of working class people.
As Antonio Gramsci said: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.” Against all the darkness, we believe this is our time to win. Against the flailing of the monsters leading this regime, we’re organizing everywhere for a gorgeous and more compassionate world for all. Millions of people are realizing what we’ve known all along: as the existing order continues to decay, socialism is what can beat fascism.
Across the country, that’s what DSA is demonstrating. Within hours of Trump’s invasion of Venezuela, our National Political Committee sprang into action with our members to coordinate days of action and say Hands Off Venezuela.DSA chapters quickly organized actions and showed up with thousands across the country to say No War, No ICE. More and more Americans are realizing that abolishing ICE isn’t a radical demand. It’s a rational response to an out-of-control force of state terror that’s still younger than most DSA members today.
MLK Day will fittingly kick off a week of protest across the country, with labor unions and community groups gearing up for a statewide shutdown of Minnesota.We’re calling on people across the country to join a nationwide day of action against ICE terror on January 20, to walk out and show up on the streets.
From coast to coast, chapters are taking on Trump’s fascist deportation machine. DSA organizers from Los Angeles to Chicago to Charlotte are learning from each others’ strategies to help each other protect residents and resist ICE — participating in ICE Watch programs, exposing the malfeasance of ICE agents near Minneapolis as they swapped out license plates before conducting raids to kidnap people, organizing for sanctuary city legislation, and making ICE collaboration a toxic decision for businesses like Avelo Airlines. Within a day of Renee’s killing by ICE, we learned that DSA members helped score a major win to pressure Avelo to cancel their contract with ICE, after chapters across the country threw down over the past year with a boycott campaign to expose their deportation flights and show that tearing families apart is toxic to their bottom line.
2026 will demand even more energy and courage from all of us, and we know DSA members everywhere will do the most to support each other in the struggles ahead. With our massive increase in membership comes a lot more in collective resources we can use to level up our people power. At our National Political Committee’s first monthly meeting of 2026 last weekend, we committed to major increases in support to the amazing work happening across DSA, with $1 million in direct grant funding we will disburse to chapters throughout the year to sustain and promote our ongoing growth, hiring more full-time staff to support our member-led organizing work, stipends to help support working class leadership of our elected body, and organizing tools to help reach masses of people in our organizing campaigns.
DSA is more powerful today than most of us could have imagined a decade ago, and we will keep organizing everywhere for the world we know we all deserve to win.
In Solidarity,
Ashik and Megan DSA National Political Committee Co-Chairs
Apply for the National Arms Embargo Committee and Abolish ICE Committee! Deadline Tuesday 1/27
As part of the implementation of convention resolutions, last December the NPC chartered two new national appointed committees, the Arms Embargo Committee and the Abolish ICE Committee.
The Arms Embargo Committee will include four liaisons from other national bodies and At five Large seats. It will provide coordination and develop joint strategies across different bodies carrying out arms embargo-related work.
The Abolish ICE Committee will include five liaisons from other national bodies and six At Large seats, and will develop a robust national priority Abolish ICE campaign.
The NPC is soliciting applications for the At Large seats of both committees! Apply by Tuesday 1/27 midnight PT through the Arms Embargo Committee Application Form or the Abolish ICE Committee Application Form if you have relevant experience and are excited to develop DSA’s anti-war or migrant defense national strategies.
Sunday 2/1 — RSVP for Starbucks Strike Reportback with the DSA National Labor Commission
Since Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) kicked off their strike in November 2025, DSA has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with them as they fight for their first union contract to bring dignity, respect, and union power to Starbucks baristas across the country. While the strike continues in Oregon, Illinois, New York, California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Texas, in many cities, SBWU members are back to work. During this strike, DSA chapters across the country have stepped up to support baristas, experimenting with new strategies and building new capacities in the process.
Join Labor for an Arms Embargo Trainings Wednesday 2/11 and Wednesday 2/25
There is no ceasefire. The United States sends more weapons for Israel’s genocide than any other country on Earth. In these trainings, you’ll learn why we need to win an arms embargo to support Palestinian liberation. Map your community, identify allied unions/organizations, set organizing targets, and get your campaign off the ground.
Attend to know what you need to unite your city and stop these shipments! These two-part trainings will recur monthly. You can RSVP here:
Sign Up for the Housing Justice Commission’s Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee Training Series! Starts Saturday 2/7
Start your year with everything you need to know about starting a tenant union! This is a four week training in February, with a two-hour session each Saturday at 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT. We’ll go over the basics of talking to your neighbors, creating collective demands, and how to strategize around the landlord-tenant contradiction. If you bring at least three participants, we’ll find your group a mentor to give you more support as you start your tenant union!
Be Part of the DSA National Editorial Board! Applications due TONIGHT, Thursday 1/15
Applications are DUE TONIGHT to the 2025-2027 DSA National Editorial Board. The Editorial Board is a 9-member body appointed by the NPC that oversees the organization’s two national publications, Democratic Left and Socialist Forum. The Editorial Board is composed of members with various points of view on important political questions. It does not exist to develop a single theoretical or strategic perspective. As a result, the publications reflect the wide range of views within the organization. The goal of the Editorial Board is not to espouse a particular “party line,” but to maintain strong editorial standards for our publications. As such, the process prioritizes familiarity with DSA and editorial experience in appointment to positions on the board.
The Baton Rouge DSA chapter passed a ban on the use of generative AI for chapter materials. Emerging AI technologies are extractive tools being used to further suppress the working class. Socialists must make a conscientious effort not to use AI.
“We are not responsible for the issue. It is not of our seeking. It has been forced upon us; and for the very reason that we deprecate violence and abhor […]
The Columbus chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is appalled at the news of ICE agents murdering a legal observer in Minneapolis on January 7. This escalation is just the next in a long string of escalating violence and oppression from ICE specifically and law enforcement in general. ICE has repeatedly demonstrated that they do not protect working people, they serve the fascist regime taking hold of our country to continue advancing their racist capitalist agenda.
Over the last year, ICE has been on a rampage across multiple cities, including here in Columbus. We’ve seen firsthand how their presence makes people feel more scared, not safer. ICE has demonstrated that fear not safety is in fact their goal, and we have seen now where this fear campaign was always headed.
Our chapter has an active campaign to convince local governments not to support federal agents when they inevitably come back to terrorize working residents in Central Ohio once again. This tragic incident is proof that this work continues to be critical. To get involved in the fight, join us at an upcoming meeting to see the work we’re doing to change the way our cities protect immigrants. Check out our calendar of events here: https://www.columbusdsa.org/events/
Also keep an eye out on local channels for other ways to protect our community and show solidarity with those most directly targeted by this regime. This violence is a clear reminder that those who are sworn to protect and serve are not serving us, the people. We must double down on our knowledge that it is on us, the working class, to keep each other and our communities safe, and to do that successfully we must work together.
To celebrate Zohran Mamdami’s inauguration, and in honor of the mass mobilization that made this moment possible, our first newsletter of 2026 is about ways to get involved right now.
First, GMDSA is proud to endorse the following candidates:
Marek Broderick for Burlington City Council Ward 8
Matt Gile for Vermont House of Representatives (Chittenden-21)
Jeffrey Peterson for Vermont House of Representatives (Chittenden-16)
We will be canvassing for Marek starting at 1:00PM in Burlington, location TBA. Reply to this email if you would like to join, and expect many more canvassing opportunities in our next newsletter and beyond. If you’ve been considering getting involved but don’t know how, canvassing is one of the best ways to start. Zohran’s campaign knocked 3 million doors!
To that end, our Electoral and Communications Committees are launching a new, joint initiative. If you are part of a group doing something about our current crisis, formal or informal, big or small, if you’ll have us, we want to meet you in person (or, if you prefer, over Zoom) to learn how we can help.
The first stop of this tour will be at Building A Local Economy (BALE) in South Royalton on January 21 at 6:00PM. Our 2026 Electoral and Communications Chairs, Adam and Alejandro, will be giving a talk and discussing our political strategy with BALE’s Resistance Hub.
A lot is going wrong right now, and we know that there are people all over Vermont trying to do something about it. We already work with many of you, and the coalitions we’ve made are behind our biggest successes, but we know that there are more of you out there doing important things. We want to work with you. Write in, and we can do it together.
Upcoming Events:
Canvassing for Councilor Marek Broderick Saturday, January 3, starting location TBA.
GMDSA member Brandon Lawson is hosting Green Mountain IWW Workplace Organizing Workshop Sunday January 11 at 3:00PM in the Community Room in the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington.
Worker’s Circle is every 2nd and 4th Wednesday at 6:00PM at 179 S. Winooski Avenue in Burlington. The next one is January 14.
GMDSA @ BALE - January 21 at 6:00PM.
For regular GMDSA Committee meetings, see our calendar.
State News:
Starbucks workers are on strike across 145 stores and counting, and the union is asking customers to stop shopping at Starbucks.
Hospice United had a successful Honk and Wave on December 20 as they bargain their first contract.
Western New York, alongside regions across the country, faces healthcare disaster due to the dysfunction of America’s privatized healthcare system being accelerated by federal cuts and state inaction. The Buffalo chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has run a campaign for over a year, Back Off BNP, researching, educating, and organizing WNY residents around the collaboration of local hospital systems, health insurers, and major corporations in the Buffalo Niagara Partnership (BNP).
“Quality healthcare is not just a necessity for us and our kids, it is a human right. It’s unacceptable that we live in fear of insurers, or of bosses dangling healthcare benefits like a carrot over our heads.“
The campaign seeks to publicize the chamber of commerce’s political influence in favor of private capital and corporations in the state, and against the solution of universal healthcare in New York state, legislation called the New York Health Act (NYHA; NY State Senate Bill 2023-S7590 and Assembly Bill A7897). DSA calls for an urgent focus on NYHA this 2026 legislative session as premiums for WNYers skyrocket to unsustainable amounts due to commercial health insurance plans seeking to offset Medicaid cuts and the effects of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill.
“Private health insurers, such as Independent Health, are being empowered to deny therapeutic and rehabilitative services to patients through arbitrarily and automatically requiring prior authorization. They make massive amounts of money to deny healthcare, get in the way of treatment, and I see them inflict cruelty and desertion on stroke and traumatic brain injury patients,” said Olivia Colgrove, co-chair of the Buffalo DSA Healthcare Committee that organized the picket and a speech-language pathologist. The issue referenced by Colgrove has received high-profile coverage in The Guardian, focusing on Kaleida (whose president and CEO sits on the board of BNP).
“We have been volunteers sounding the alarm on the rollback of what little public healthcare still exists, and the crisis that expansion of the role of private insurers in these programs represents. Trump’s second term is already showing how fragile a system based on private insurance is,” said Moira Madden, co-chair of the Buffalo DSA Healthcare Committee and emergency mental health caseworker. “It’s past time for urgency in the movement for universal healthcare on the state level (e.g. NYHA), as a way to protect against this worsening dysfunction. January 2026 begins a new state legislative session, and a new opportunity for public advocacy and oversight of anti-NYHA lobbyists.”
“Quality healthcare is not just a necessity for us and our kids, it is a human right. It’s unacceptable that we live in fear of insurers, or of bosses dangling healthcare benefits like a carrot over our heads. I am proud to stand with Buffalo DSA, as our campaign and chapter fight for the New York Health Act,” said Adam Bojak, Buffalo DSA member and candidate for state assembly in district 149.
On January 8, 2026 the Buffalo Niagara Partnership will be presenting their lobbying agenda for the year to their political allies at the Jazzboline restaurant in Amherst, from 4-7pm. Buffalo DSA has once again been organizing their membership, sympathetic organizations, and the signatories to their Back Off BNP campaign so far to picket the event and BNP’s longstanding role in opposing the NYHA solution to the healthcare crisis that could be led by New York.
More on NYHA and BNP
NYHA would create statewide, universal, “single payer” healthcare, meaning if passed, all New Yorkers would be enrolled in a single, public insurance program. All services requiring a medical professional of the patient’s choice would be fully covered, without extraneous fees or the negative, profit-motivated intervention of a private insurer.
Buffalo DSA has long rallied around NYHA’s passage alongside like-minded groups and unions statewide, based on its positive projected outcomes for workers’ rights, families, and individuals in all stages of life in New York, as well as the state’s health systems. NYHA, according to the organization, would provide $80 billion in savings over 10 years, as a self-sustaining program through the state’s progressive tax structure. Per their research, New York would not need to cut any essential or existing social programs to fund NYHA, and would create ~150,000 new jobs in the public sector, with retraining for and rehiring of current private insurance workers. Public hospitals would benefit from a higher reimbursement rate, which would lower chances of hospital closures, improving health outcomes for New Yorkers.
The corresponding legislation for NYHA has stalled over the course of several sessions, in part due to lobbyists like the Buffalo Niagara Partnership; the region’s most-utilized health insurers hold leadership on the BNP board and the organization enjoys close ties with local politicians. As Buffalo DSA states in its report on NYHA Opposition, the BNP’s Memorandum of Opposition against these bills, and its membership in an untraceable campaign called “Realities of Single Payer” are examples of their lack of care for the region’s residents. “The way the BNP has wielded its power to lobby against universal healthcare is cruel and unacceptable,” said Madden. “Everyday working people, who outnumber the executives of the BNP, deserve a healthcare system that works for everyone. Anti-NYHA lobbying only serves to enrich the insurance and health system executives on the leadership board.”
Western New York residents are encouraged to visit Buffalo DSA’s campaign website to learn more about the New York Health Act and sign the organization’s petition. Those interested in volunteering for further campaigning are encouraged to contact the chapter; the group says no previous campaign experience is required.
Buffalo DSA, Inc. is a member dues funded and member-directed not-for-profit in the State of New York. Democratic Socialists of America believe both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. Join Buffalo DSA by visiting buffalodsa.org.
The Trump Administration has started an illegal war against Venezuela. This is a nakedly imperialist war to install a US puppet government that will give Venezuela’s oil resources over to […]
