Dear friends,

I like to think of myself as a fucking ray of sunshine most of the time but unfortunately, this post is gonna be anything but sunny. It is a call to action. It is an all-hands-on-deck cry to fight Trump marching the US towards fascism. It is a 'we can do this if we all join in' message to anyone who's reading my newsletters - Americans, Canadians, Europeans, Antipodeans, and everywhere else you happen to be logging in. Every single living being on earth is affected by what happens in the US, and we all have the right and responsibility to do whatever we can to turn it around.

Every morning I read 3 newsletters that land in my inbox from Heather Cox Richardson, Charlie Angus, and from Jay Kuo. Yesterday's post from Jay Kuo is terrifying. As if watching video after video of heavily armed, masked, unidentified, un-uniformed ICE thugs kidnapping anyone and everyone isn't already completely freaking us out, Kuo paints a clear picture of what's to come (like, imminently, not in some distance future). and it's pure, unadulterated fascism.

Among the other worrying facts Jay Kuo states, he warns, "To understand this threat, we need to look carefully within the pages of Trump’s “Big, Beautiful” budget. That bill contains a funding increase for ICE of $27 billion dollars, or 10,000 more ICE officers. Trump is planning to use these billions to recruit an army of masked, armed and largely unaccountable agents. This is a break-the-glass moment for our democracy, hiding within the line items of a single, massive bill." In a word, if this goes through, we're all seriously fucked.

Friends, we have no choice but to use whatever tools we have (and we have so very many) to fight this brutality. Similar fights have been fought throughout history, and now it's our turn, no matter where we are in this world.

From my sweet little home in Victoria, British Columbia, where I can actually see the US when I stand on the shores of the Salish Sea, I have been furiously emailing senators to demand they challenge Homeland Secretary Kristi - puppy killer- Noem, Chief Nazi Stephen Adolf Miller, and 'Border Czar' (don't they even know what happened to the Czar during the Russian Revolution?) Tom Homan in their gestapo-led moves to make America white. All white.

This Shit's Personal!

My grandmother arrived at Ellis Island with her 2 little brothers. Immigrants escaping pogroms and starvation in Bialystok.

My father emigrated to America after escaping Nazis in Yugoslavia.
There he married my mother, the daughter of Russian immigrants.

I'd like to think that, even if I wasn't the daughter of immigrants I would still be fighting ICE just now. While I am very closely connected to the immigrant experience, fighting fascism is everyone's job, not just those who are, or might have been in danger. And, hoo boy! What a joy to see so, so many people from all walks of life stepping up for neighbours and standing up to ICE. We're seeing it everywhere, from the denizens of LA chasing ICE out of hotels, LA Dodgers refusing to allow ICE in to their stadium, throngs of neighbours foiling ICE's attempts to lure migrants into traps, more neighbours blocking ICE offices, politicians and judges, and now, even priests - people from all walks of life are putting their own safety on the line to protect the victims of this fascist rampage. According to Kuo, it looks like we're going to have to get even bigger and noisier and braver in our fight for humanity, and do it fast.

Those of us who can't show up in person show up in their inboxes.

If you're not in a position to confront ICE agents or surround kidnapping targets, you can flood politicians' inboxes with demands that they stop this before it's too late. You can find links to the contact page on every US senator's website here. When writing to Republicans (write to all of them, just make sure you use their city and zip code so they think you are their constituent) remind them over and over that they swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. Remind them over and over that this is NOT immigration reform (they like to pretend it is). Demand that they speak out against the unelected Nazis authorizing these illegal abductions. Demand due process for all.

Here are a few examples from emails I've sent about ICE being out of control. Always feel free to use any parts you want to help formulate your own emails.

ICE is out of control! March 17th 2025

Dear Senator - Every single day I am reading new horror stories of ICE agents acting like Nazi Brownshirts. They are illegally detaining US residents and citizens as well as unsuspecting visitors to the US from Canada and the UK....

Please clarify your position. March 28th, 2025

Dear Senator - Let me get this straight – every day we are hearing about legally documented immigrants, visitors, and possibly even US citizens being ABDUCTED by ICE agents, literally put in chains, and shipped to for-profit detention centers and/or hard labor prisons in El Salvador with no proof of crime and no due process. ICE agents are revoking their visas and stripping them of their belongings without any authority to do so.

While the Americans who voted for Trump last November thought they were voting for change, I believe they were hoping that their vote would result in lowering the cost of eggs, not throwing us head-first into a violent totalitarian oligarchy run by idiots and assholes.

Will you continue to defend the idiots and assholes endangering our democracy or will you speak up for justice? I await your response.

Stephen Miller’s Got to Go!  May 10th, 2025 

Dear Senator - Who the hell is Stephen Miller and why are you not demanding his immediate removal? This lowlife nobody with a life-size attitude problem and heart so full of hatred he’s festering in it, is threatening to suspend Habeas Corpus and I’m not hearing a peep of protest from members of your party.

Okay – we get it, Miller loathes immigrants (at least the brown-skinned version) and is hellbent on destroying their lives. He’s not satisfied with his masked ICE goons abducting and deporting mothers, fathers, children, cancer patients, cancer researchers, students and their teachers, the people who grow our food, make our food, and serve our food, the people who clean our hospitals and care for our elderly. Now he has his violent thugs arresting mayors and threatening to arrest members of Congress, judges, and journalists (Fascism 101). And if you allow him to suspend Habeas Corpus, it’s going to get a whole lot worse from here.

Senator, we know how this story goes. It happened in Germany and Europe in the 1930s/40s because no one stopped it from happening. Mass compliance and cooperation with the forces of evil made way for one of the deadliest fascist governments in human history. Make no mistake, that nasty little weasel Miller is a 1^st class fascist reading from Hitler’s playbook, and he must be stopped.

According to the Constitution, neither Trump nor his hateful sidekick Miller have the authority to suspend Habeas Corpus. While Congress seems to have been bamboozled and forgotten their responsibilities in all the chaos coming out of the Oval Office, your constituents haven’t and we are holding you all accountable. Only Congress has the authority to make this very serious decision. I expect you and your colleagues to remind Trump and Miller of this constitutional fact and tell them to back off and stay in their lane.  Do your job!

And I've continued to harangue with emails entitled things like this:

Fascism 101 (June 9th, 2025), Totalitarianism 101 (June 12th, 2025), Reform? (June 19th, 2025)

Will our emails work? Will they put a stop to the scary ICE kidnappings? Will they force the Republicans to grow a spine before the US becomes a complete police state? I really don't know, but I know that the more of us who raise our voices, the harder we are to ignore. If letter writing feels like something you CAN do, I highly recommend giving it a try. As Jay Kuo said in yesterday's post, "This is a break-the-glass moment for our democracy (your democracy is my democracy, even though I don't live there anymore). We need to try everything we can to fight fascism, and we are currently looking fascism square in the face. Let's do this!

Sending you sunshine and solidarity,

Jessica

p.s. Today is National Indigenous Peoples Day here in Canada. I like to remind Republicans that, unless they are Native Americans, they, too, come from a family of immigrants.