Prior to the controversial election of Donald Trump, when the term “resistance” was used, it usually referred to movements like the French Resistance, made up of individuals and organizations who covertly worked alone or together to oppose Adolf Hitler’s regime and Nazi invasion. Thousands of Jewish lives and dissenting political figures were saved by resistance fighters. Those involved in these secret channels faced the penalty of death.
Before World War II, there was Harriet Tubman and the American Underground Railroad resistance where Black slaves were transported into freedom via escape routes and underground tunnels. The penalty Harriet Tubman and others helping her faced, as well as those fleeing was enslavement, torture, and death.
A new movement has been created in 2016, called the Resistance, and is made up of millions who have taken to the streets, airports and town halls to protest Donald Trump as he leads the country into chaos and fascism. Hardworking and relentless grassroots organizations such as MoveOn.org and actions such as The Indivisible Guide, the Resistance Calendar are unifying with hundreds of other progressive and human rights groups to resist Trump’s executive orders and cabinet appointees — including white nationalist/white supremacist Steve Bannon. The Resistance is also protesting new amoral laws passed by Congress members of a self-serving and complicit Republican Party, led by Vice President Mike Pence and House and Senate leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
This modern Resistance began to swell immediately following the staggering presidential election on November 8, 2016, which many believe was corrupted by Russian influence via Vladimir Putin. The Women’s March on Washington, which took place one day after Trump’s Inauguration, kicked the movement into high gear. The world witnessed close to five million anti-Trump and pro-human rights protestors demonstrating across the globe on every continent.
Following the Women’s March, massive airport protests began immediately after Trump placed an unconstitutional temporary ban on immigrants from seven different predominantly Muslim countries and a permanent ban on all Syrian refugees.
Federal courts soon overturned most of that ban, but Trump and his regime issued another order weeks later and set forth an even more stringent and forceful deportation action. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are being conducted all over the country with intent to deport undocumented immigrants, including those who have lived in the United States practically all of their lives and committed no crime. Many are yanked from their children and families.
In response to Trump and his Republican Party working their way around the law to push the new ban, a new branch of this Resistance made up of faith-based leaders and volunteers across he country have begun working their way around the law, as well, with some intentionally breaking the law in order to find ways to harbor immigrants on the run. Currently under federal law, religious venues like churches and synagogues can be raided by law enforcement actions. But in 2011, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) instituted a policy limiting ICE action at religious locations. “The policy ordered ICE to not enter ‘sensitive locations’ like schools and institutions of worship.” The concern now is that Trump will not adhere to the 2011 policy and there is good reason for that concern. According to Faithful America:
“Several Latino men had just left the hypothermia shelter at Rising Hope Mission Church in Alexandria, Virginia when a dozen federal agents suddenly surrounded them, pushed them up against a wall, and began checking their immigration status.”
A new avenue of the Resistance is calls themselves the Rapid Response Team. Part of what they are doing is buying homes and/or building onto their own homes to offer refuge for immigrants on the run. ICE and law enforcement agents would need warrants to allow law enforcement officials to enter private homes providing a buffer of time to move immigrants. If caught harboring or aiding undocumented immigrants, activists could face strict penalties and prison time. CNN spoke with Pastor Ada Valienti while she was working on the floors of a newly bought home.
“The purchase of this home is part of a network formed by Los Angeles religious leaders across faiths in the wake of Donald Trump’s election. The intent is to shelter hundreds, possibly thousands of undocumented people in safe houses across Southern California.”
As well as offering food, shelter and clothing, some Rapid Response Team volunteers are escorting immigrants to deportation interviews and offering free legal advice. One Jewish man who is offering a bedroom in his house, and chooses to remain anonymous, says:
“It’s hard as a Jew,” he says, “not to think about both all the people who did open their doors and their homes and take risks to safeguard Jews in [a] moment when they were really vulnerable, as well as those who didn’t. We’d like to be the people who did.”
The executive director of the Conservative Center for Immigration Studies, Mark Krikorian, says the law clearly puts these resisters in opposition to it.
“They’re committing a felony. Harboring is a felony,” Krikorian says. “Regular folks hiding people in a basement face jail time because it is ultimately a smuggling conspiracy.”
Those involved are aware of the consequences and seem undaunted. Pastor Valienti says, “We’re doing what we think is right.”
This is what the real American spirit looks like. To learn more about what is happening in the Resistance, check out weekly MoveOn.org calls and actions such as The Indivisible Guide, the Resistance Calendar.