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Este fin de semana, la Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza, fuerza policiaca personal de Trump, empezará a ocupar nuestra ciudad y secuestrar a nuestros vecinos para terrorizar a la comunidad inmigrante e intimidarnos a quienes nos oponemos. Charlotte Metro DSA condena esta invasión. Nos mantenemos en solidaridad con la clase trabajadora de todas las naciones . Lucharemos contra esta invasión con toda la gente de consciencia.

Estos ataques son parte de una historia larga del estado fomentando la división entre personas de la clase trabajadora para debilitar y amenazar a nuestras comunidades con agentes armados cuando parecemos demasiado fuertes.

Previamente en este año, iniciamos nuestra campaña para boicotear a Avelo. La aerolínea Avelo es una aerolínea de bajo costo que está bajo contrato con ICE para llevar a cabo vuelos de deportaciones. Estamos pidiendo a la gente que participe en el boicot para generar presión a la empresa y la Ciudad de Concord, ciudad de donde despegan los vuelos, para que cesen el contrato. Con este fin llevaremos a cabo una protesta el día 29 alrededor del aeropuerto Concord-Padgett, les invitamos a que se nos unan.

Otros grupos de la comunidad están trabajando activamente para luchar contra este fenómeno.

Por favor revisen y utilicen la red de migrantes de las Carolinas y su línea directa para reportar secuestros (704) 740-7737

Y también visiten Siembra NC para obtener detalles sobre el entrenamiento en vigilancia de ICE el 17 de noviembre.

Nuestro objetivo es organizar y unir a la ciudad para resistir estos secuestros. Por favor acérquese a nosotros para colaborar o involucrarse.

En Solidaridad,

El Comité Directivo de Charlotte Metro DSA

English

Today, Customs & Border Patrol, Trump’s personal police force, will begin occupying our city and abducting our neighbors to terrorize the immigrant community and cow domestic opposition. Charlotte Metro DSA condemns this invasion. We stand in solidarity with the working class of all nations. We will fight this invasion with all people of conscience.

These attacks are a part of the long history of capital & its state fomenting divisions among the working class to keep us weak and siccing armed agents on us and our communities when we appear too strong.

Earlier this year we began our Boycott Avelo campaign. Avelo airlines is a budget airline that has a contract with ICE for deportation flights. We are asking people to boycott the company and help us put pressure on the company and the City of Concord where they fly out of to get them to drop the contract. To that end, we’ll be having a protest on the 29th by the Concord-Padgett airport. We invite you to join us.

Other groups in the community have also been actively fighting back. Please check out the Carolina Migrant Network and use their hotline to report abductions: (704) 740-7737.

See Siembra NC for details about their upcoming ICE Watch trainings.

We aim to organize and unite the city to resist these abductions. Please reach out to collaborate or get involved.

In Solidarity,

The Charlotte Metro DSA Steering Committee

Translated from Italian to English. This interview was originally published in Springs of Revolution.

José Nivoi is a spokesperson for CALP (Collettivo Autonomo Lavoratori Portuali – Autonomous Dockworkers Collective) in Genoa and a member of USB (Unione Sindacale di Base – Grassroot Trade Union). He’s aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza and has been instrumental in organizing port blockades against arms shipments to Israel across Italian ports.

On Monday, September 22, 2025, grassroots unions and student organizations throughout Italy successfully organized a general strike in just a few days. The strike coincided with the passage of the Global Sumud Flotilla. The Flotilla constituted a group of boats with activists from all over the world, from Brazil to the United Kingdom and beyond, intending to reach Gaza with aid to break the Israeli government’s blockade.

The bold actions of Italian grassroots unions pushed overwhelming pressure on the Italian government and other political institutions. The Italian government eventually sent two warships alongside the Flotilla. The Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), the biggest confederated labor union in Italy, would join militant organizers in a general strike on October 3rd. The results were staggering – hundreds of thousands flooded the streets.

On Nov 15, 2025, East Baton Rouge voters rejected three tax propositions collectively called Thrive EBR. The taxes, like so many EBR ballot measures, were confusing and complicated, requiring multiple explainer articles and promotional sessions. But focusing on the minutia of the taxes would miss the context which produced this result. The political establishment assumed they could speak for you and you would accept a tax plan that you had no input on creating. Activists, voters, city-parish employees, and community organizations need to begin organizing together to prevent a follow up that is worse.

On the surface, the results are very surprising. It seemed that everyone who mattered in EBR endorsed the Thrive! plan. Both the local Democratic Party and Republican Party endorsed. The local Police Union, the Firefighters Association and AFL-CIO endorsed. All 12 Metro-Council members and all four mayors in EBRP endorsed. Everywhere you went in the parish, there were signs endorsing the measures. The library administration, while not technically allowed to take a stance, did everything it could to push people to vote Yes.

However, for those of us with deep ties to the community and grassroots organizations, it was clear that a groundswell of No votes was coming. Local political commentators like Nick Laborde, Gary Chambers, Tania Nyman, and Rolfe McCollister came out against the plan, from different angles. There was a common thread: Mayor-President Edwards cannot be trusted.

“Coach Sid” is merely a symbol of the political establishment. He is uniquely unpopular and his surprise win in 2024 was not truly a reflection of the general EBR population. Edwards has no vision for the future, and none of this would have been possible without the support of the Metro Council. The political class of EBR has become complacent, as evidenced by the uninspiring 2024 campaigns where candidates refused to distinguish themselves from politics as usual. It was the lowest turnout in a presidential election year that the Parish has had since at least 2000.

Thrive! is a continuation of these politics. Documents show that a major funder of the campaign is Governor Jeff Landry’s personal attorney. Other funders have ties to the January 6 insurrection. The biggest beneficiary will be the wealthy in the white-flight enclave of St. George. Edwards claims that the parish owes debts to the new city for an amount that St. George lawyers seem to keep changing. This debt is only an excuse for the rich to impose austerity measures on the rest of us.

Rather than collaborating with community organizations and workers, the Thrive campaign was coordinated top-down. Information sessions did not provide opportunities for attendees to offer suggestions or changes. The plan was given to the Metro Council, complaints were ignored, and it was put on the ballot.

By rejecting Thrive!, voters are saying that they want their money to go to the things they care about: the library, infrastructure, social support systems. They do not want the money to go into the Mayor and Metro Council’s “general fund” which will be used to give tax breaks to the wealthy, increase the abuse and over-enforcement from police, and maybe buy Councilmember Laurie Adams another house.

What’s Next?

The Baton Rouge Democratic Socialists of America is creating an alternative to politics as usual. Clearly the organized political establishment in the city could not move the voting public to their side. Distrust of these institutions is high, for good reason: they have failed to address the material needs of the majority of residents of EBR. We want all schools to be well-funded. We want our crumbling infrastructure repaired. We want the wealthy to pay their fair share, and that includes Exxon, LSU, and all the other corporate entities who abuse our city. We want real solutions to crime, not more police who brutalize our neighbors. We want a Metro Council that is actually representative of the parish.

We are beginning a campaign to stop the creation of the St. George school system. This school system will further bankrupt the parish and is the next step in the segregation efforts within the parish. Join us in canvassing and getting the word out.

We ask all non-library City-Parish employees to become active members of their AFSCME union and push the union to actually fight for you. You will have to attend the meetings, voice your concerns, and collaborate with your fellow workers to reform the union. Do not let your union endorse a plan that is against your interest because you did not show up. Baton Rouge DSA is available to help you coordinate and plan.

For library workers, since you are currently ineligible to join AFSCME, you will have to organize on your own into an independent union. You can begin by talking to your coworkers, building a list. The city-parish will attempt to cut wages, benefits, or staff as a result of this. The library administration spoke as representatives of the library, with minimal input from the workers themselves. It is only by organizing together that you can change this.

In the future, East Baton Rouge Parish residents should push for a more participatory budgeting process. In Participatory Budgeting, neighborhood assemblies get to decide how funds are allocated in the city through a process of deliberative democratic decision making. Rather than budgets created behind closed doors with backroom deals between politicians, a participatory plan would give power back to the community, and allow them to decide how they want their tax dollars to be spent. This power should not be given to lobbyists or campaign donors or Jeff Landry, but the people of the city who make it work every day.

The way to win your demands is not by waiting for establishment leaders to act, as they have failed to do for many years now. The activists on social media and grassroots community organizations need to unite to make sure their voices are heard. It is vital that we, the people, shape the narrative of why this vote failed. The best way to do that is to organize together.

The Baton Rouge Democratic Socialists of America (BR DSA) is working to build a true democracy in the Greater Baton Rouge area. You should join the movement for a better world at dsausa.org/join

The following remarks were made at the No Reawaken America Tour (“RAT”) Teach-In, held August 13, 2022 at Austin Park in Batavia, NY. The RAT was a christian nationalist propaganda tour featuring Michael Flynn, Eric Trump, and other reactionaries and conspiracists. After public pressure from groups like ROC DSA, the event moved from Rochester to the Cornerstone Church in Batavia, where it was met by the continued resistance of the newly-formed Genesee County DSA and allies.

These were my first public remarks as a socialist (a “coming out,” if you will)—acting upon my beliefs as part of an organized mass working-class movement. It was an empowering experience, and one that we try to recreate for others in the pages of Rochester Red Star. Although much has changed over the intervening three years, the themes expressed here continue to ring true. A recording of these remarks is available here: bit.ly/norat-wny.

SHEFFIELD, MA – Adnaan and Torleif Stumo are two brothers from a town in the westernmost corner of Massachusetts. On October 8th, 2025, they were in the epicenter of Israel’s violation of international and maritime law. Today, they are back in America. In the heart of the nation that allowed for them to be kidnapped from the open ocean, held in a foreign nation’s prison with no due process, and physically and psychologically tortured for the crime of attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to the victims of Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians.