The second Trump Administration has brought with it an unprecedented attack on migrants, led by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) focused on people who are living in the United States without formal documentation. In this conversation we talk with Alexandra Pineros Shields - a long term community organiser, immigrant rights campaigner and researcher about how communities are fighting back to defend the rights of migrants and change how policing is done.

This conversation explores Alexandra's history of organising and building strategy to make change, as well as the kinds of innovative tactics being used by communities to combat ICE. She runs through techniques like power analysis and shows how a practical understanding of different dimensions of power can help build effective strategy. She talks about the power of communities using prefigurative action - where they model what the state should be doing - as a way to tell a story to make change more compelling.

This episode is a deep dive into what you might have seen on the news - it is a reassuring and inspiring reminder that even in the face of repression and abusive of power, there is also power in community to respond and make change.

In the podcast a few different organisations are mentioned, here is where you can find out more:

John Gaventa - When Alexandra teaches she asks students read chapter 4 from The Miner’s Canary. We also have links of a diagram that Alexandra uses with organisers on our website.

‘Midwife for Power’: Towards a Mujerista/Womanist Model of Community Organizing - https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/ijcre/article/view/7771/7855

Ayni Institute - https://ayni.institute/

The Right Question Institute (Cambridge, Massachusetts) – Question Formulation Technique - https://rightquestion.org/what-is-the-qft/

City of Boston – City of Belonging Campaign

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Alexandra Pineros Shields - ChangeMaker Chat - the People vs ICE