This week, we’re featuring three segments in our episode.
First up, you’ll hear Maru Mora-Villalpando talking about the immigration prison known as the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA and the organizing that her organization La Resistencia does to shut down this private prison run by Geo Group. [ 00:00:54 – 00:44:00 ]
Then, a member of Pittsburgh Fash Watch, an antifascist group, talks about their mobilization and unmasking of white supremacists in their area, such as WLM and Goyim Defense League (GDL) chud Brandon Cahall. [ 00:45:07 – 00:54:42]
Finally, Sean Swain addresses post-election ennui. [ 00:54:45-end ]
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Featured Track:
- Bella Ciao by Leslie Fish
La Resistencia Transcription
Maru: My name is Maru Mora-Villalpando. I’m the founder and advisor of La Resistencia in Tacoma, Washington. My pronouns are she and her.
TFSR: Thanks a lot for joining. Would you tell us about La Resistencia, how the group is organized, where it came from, and what it does?
M: Yeah, it’s a grassroots community group led by people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and people who have experienced immigration enforcement. The group aims to end all detentions and deportations in Washington State. To do that, they’re working really hard to shut down the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington.
TFSR: How long has the group been around? How did it form?
M: We started more than 10 years ago. It started because I was undocumented for 25 years, and I had been very involved in immigration justice for many years. I followed different paths, policy, know-your-rights advocacy until I realized that the only path was direct action. I organized the shutdown of deportations on February 24, 2014, and that led to the largest hunger strike so far in a detention center. A couple of weeks later, on March 7, 2014, over 1200 people went on hunger strike so far at the same detention center in response to our actions. They were already organized. They just needed support on the outside. That’s how La Resistencia was born, out of the response to the inside organizing. And we’re still going.
TFSR: That’s really impressive. If we think about a few years before, there were very large protests, hunger strikes, and work stoppages by prisoners in the California prison system that expanded out to other prison systems. In Georgia, strikes were organized among prisoners in different facilities through the use of cell phones and through organizing networks. But that’s inspirational to hear about that inside-outside support and solidarity you were participating in.
M: That’s really the formula that we have followed since. My first original idea when I decided to do civil disobedience and come out public as undocumented was that I would be detained and put in the detention center and I would help organize. I realized that they were already organized. They didn’t need my help inside. They needed it outside. Since then, that’s really how we follow the leadership of those inside. We talk to them daily, throughout the day, families, etc. Of course, we do mutual aid like many groups do with people in prison. But our main aim in every communication is to do political education in support of their organizing in whatever shape or form they decide to go. For example, hunger strikes that are very common here, sadly. We try to replicate the leadership of the inside-outside. After some years, we have finally reached that point where everybody in leadership has somehow experienced the system. We even have an advisory board of people who have been deported. We’re still in communication with them and they’re still fighting.
TFSR: I wonder if you could talk about the Northwest Detention Center. Who runs it, who’s held there, and what are the conditions? Is it bigger than that specific ICE detention?
M: No, it’s just ICE detention. It’s a unique contract. This is a private detention center, well, prison. They just call it a detention center because it’s under civil law. But it opened in 2004. It was built by a company which was a subsidiary of Halliburton. So it had direct ties to the then-vice president, and then it was sold to GEO Group, which has been around since the 80s and is based in Florida. They’re the largest for-profit private jailers in the world. They operate not only here in the United States but also in many other countries. But this detention center kept expanding until the point that we were able to stop them. It started with with 500 bed capacity, it reached nearly 2000, their maximum capacity nowadays. But also, their contract is also directly with the feds, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is not the usual throughout the country. Usually, contracts would be with the county, the state, or somebody else like that. In a way we have a harder time because we’re dealing directly with the feds. Only a third of the capacity is set for women; they’re supposed to have only adults here. But we have, of course, found minors being detained once in a while, which they’re not supposed to.
It’s in the middle of the Port of Tacoma, the Tideflats. This site is a Superfund [site], and nobody should be living here. But yet, they managed to build this place and have people living here 24/7. It is an industrial zone, so there are a lot of dangers around it, not only because it’s all polluted in the ground but also the air. It is right next to a bunch of industries. Behind it is a metal recycling plant that has gone on fire twice. Across the street, another company produces materials that can be used for floors and walls, which also caught on fire last year. A mile away in the port, there have been tankers that have been caught on fire twice. It’s a good thing none of them had oil in them at the time. One of the latest times when the tanker caught on fire it was right next to the liquified natural gas (LNG) plant that is being built, and it’s not open yet. But I think this is a sign that either way, this place is going to blow up and the first people to die will be the hundreds of people detained here because this private company has no evacuation plan for people detained. They have an evacuation plan for emergencies for their staff but not for people detained. This company is in the middle of nowhere, it’s set in the worst place ever and it’s not surprising, as their bottom line is money. That’s it.
TFSR: I’m sure they got a real deal on that spot to be able to- I guess GEO didn’t build it, they bought it from someone. That circumstance of what happens when a natural or unnatural disaster occurs next to a facility or around a facility is something in the southeast we’ve been experiencing around the hurricanes coming through, where staff maybe end up getting out of the space but they end up leaving people in their cells.
That’s interesting, I didn’t know that about the conditions at the Northwest Detention Center. Have you all worked with Fight Toxic Prisons around those conditions? It’s a group that works at the intersection of ecological justice and an abolitionist perspective. They played a big part in fighting the building of the federal facility in Eastern Kentucky on a former mountaintop removal site. I can send you information afterward, but I bet they would be good at amplifying that element of your struggle.
M: No, we haven’t, and it would be great. Many local groups are here working on the environmental fight precisely because it’s so polluted. We work with groups such as the Climate Alliance of the South Sound. There’s a coalition fighting against fossil fuels. There’s another group that checks on the Bay’s health, because of the port there’s obviously a lot of contamination also of the water. There are those groups that are integrating their work in regards to whether we want a healthy port, a healthy Bay, or a healthy Tacoma. We should get rid of the Detention Center as part of that plan.
TFSR: In terms of the people held in the facility, is it folks facing charges who are currently detained and awaiting hearings, people who have just been picked up who are not being given hearings but are being shuttled towards the border, folks who have been convicted of something related to their immigration or unrelated who are serving a sentence?
M: It’s all civil, so supposedly no one is charged with anything and no one is serving a sentence. Yet, it feels it. But there’s a little bit of everything. There are actually a lot of people that have been brought from the border, asylum seekers. There have been a lot of people from prisons who have already served their sentences. Many people were picked up in the middle of their [immigration] processes if they were charged with something, but they were not sentenced for anything. There has not been a conclusion of their processes. There’s been a lot of people who probably missed their immigration courts, and they didn’t know. There are a lot of people that are undocumented, and ICE happens to find them. There’s a little bit of different stories.
I think the population here has decreased, and the biggest population we’ve seen is the asylum seekers. Because here in the Northwest, in both Oregon and Washington, we have passed very strict laws to stop the collaboration between local police and state agencies with ICE. That has reduced the number of people that are picked up on the streets, at the court houses, or doing things like that. We see more people being brought from prisons, actually from other places like California, as a matter of fact. Still, the largest population (which has always been historically) is the people coming from the border. The Border Patrol does a lot of work with all their toys and the militarization of the border to take people in, pass them on to the custody of ICE, and then ICE transports them everywhere in the country. We’re really far away from everyone. So, when people are released, because there’s no reason for them to behold in the first place here. No one should be detained. Even ICE has all the power in the world to release absolutely everyone in the country, but they don’t. When people get released from here, many have no idea where they’re at. They think this is Washington, DC, instead of Washington, Tacoma. They have to be flown to Florida, Texas, or Georgia, you name it. But most people are not from here. Again, this tells you that ICE does all this shuffling around just to keep up with their contracts and the minimum guarantees in those contracts and also just to play the political game that “we’re dangerous and they have to put us away.”
TFSR: I would imagine that the answer to this is going to be, “It’s complicated,” and there are lots of examples, but are people in the Northwest Detention Center… Is there a standard or average amount of time that they’ve been in the facility? Or does it just matter on a case-by-case basis?
M: As a matter of fact, there’s a report done recently by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, which we partner with constantly, and we’re the ones asking them to do all these reports on all the information we gather. They found that this is the detention center with the longest stay in the country, with a minimum of 7 months on average. That keeps increasing every time. If you ask lawyers about the average stay some years ago, they will tell you “three months”, and then the next year, they will say “four months”, and they just keep increasing. As far as I remember, the last one was “seven months”. But we’ve seen people detained for years. We’ve met people detained for 4-5-6 years, and they’re not the only ones. And those cases happen to be more and more often because they happen to be cases of people that want to fight. They don’t want to get deported, so they keep fighting and fighting. Some people are here detained for less time because they shouldn’t be detained, but ICE decided to detain them. They go on a hunger strike, and we make it public, and then ICE has a problem in their hands. Because even ICE knows that at a certain period, this specific group of people with no criminal record whatsoever, at least [one] that ICE can use against them, should have been released months ago. Every time that happens we suddenly see waves of people being released. I wouldn’t say it’s complicated. I would say it’s a mix, but this detention center definitely happens to be one with the longest stay in the country which is extremely, extremely worrisome.
TFSR: Can you talk about why people have been going on hunger strikes over this course? You’ve described a 10-year cycle since when you were involved in supporting folks, and now it’s 2024. There are examples of people who have been picked up and held under illegal circumstances or un-legal circumstances. There are health concerns from the outside, but that seems more of a long-term thing that maybe isn’t on the top of people’s list of “I need to get out of the space.” What’s the medical access? What’s the food access and legal access? What’s that like?
M: Talking about the legal sense, people have a ton of stories that they shouldn’t have been picked up in the first place. Again, this is because people finish their sentences, or were walking home, or driving to work. There would be people just coming out of court, settling a case or something. However, the way the immigration system works is that all the burden is on you to fight. The state doesn’t have to prove anything; you have to prove that you should be able to stay. That complicates things. In the civil system, you have to pay for your own lawyer, which is extremely expensive, and being detained makes it even harder than in any common time. This is a very expensive process. You don’t get interpreters; you don’t get anything translated. You have to literally defend yourself and try to understand legal maneuvers. At the same time, this is not your language or your culture. Then there are three judges here. The recent report that I just mentioned precisely details that both these judges and ICE have the discretion to grant bonds or bail for people. Yet this detention center demonstrates the lowest bond rate in the country. If you happen to have one, by any chance, it will be the highest in the country as well. All of that, regarding the legal side, pushes people to the brink. Yet, some people don’t want to take it to the point of starving themselves, but if you pile to the detention conditions, your food is garbage, there are no programs. We got a lawsuit against this company because they were putting people to work for $1 a day instead of paying them the minimum wage that Washington state has for everybody, regardless of papers. They stopped the program, and now hardly anyone cleans, so the facility is filthy. There’s no medical support at all. It’s horrible; I can go on and on and on and on.
All those piled up build the need for people to do the only thing they can: go on hunger strike. But this year, we’ve seen two deaths. One on March 7, and one just recently, on October 27. Two people died, both of them in confinement, one of them Charles Leo Daniels, four years he was detained, four years he spent in solitary confinement here. And the other one, Jose Manuel Sanchez, died in medical isolation after five days of arriving and not being provided the medical care that he needed. He was in fentanyl withdrawal, and instead of giving him the very, very common medicine that anybody could get outside or send him to a hospital, he was left to die in this place. That also launches people to desperation, to say, “We need attention,” and that’s why they go on hunger strike and call us. 99% of the time, during hunger strikes, people call us so we can let the public know what’s going on.
TFSR: Having talked to prisoners who have taken part in hunger strikes, it’s a really extreme choice. And as you go on, depending on the regime of hunger strike that you’re going on, it can cause a lot of permanent damage to your internal organ systems, to your kidneys, your liver, to your heart. It’s a very extreme choice for people to take, and you must feel really backed into a corner to take that approach seriously.
Have you found that hunger strikes have effectively changed policies in the organization or the federal government’s oversight? Or has that caused enough public outrage that pressure has been applied and changed policies, or is it just the last resort, like we can’t do anything else and must do something?
M: I think that’s the last resort all the time. Yet, it does have an impact. People who go on hunger strike don’t see it often. We see it, like I said when people go on hunger strike, and then ICE starts releasing people. As a matter of fact, in March, when Charles Leo Daniel died, some people attempted suicide, and those who were helping them going on hunger strike were released. But it does create an impact on the public. We have been able to move the general public to support the cause. Now, even politicians agree that something must happen regarding the detention center. Most local and statewide politicians agree that there shouldn’t be a detention center here, especially not a private one. It does create a big impact on the work. It’s really bad that the people who go hungry strike don’t see it and don’t feel it. They feel it is a huge sacrifice for nothing because they are often deported and transferred to other places. Then we don’t hear from them ever again. As you mentioned, who knows about the long-term effects on their health. But definitely, there’s a reason why ICE nowadays tries to negotiate instead of doing immediate retaliation. They try to offer breakfast and eat it with them; it is a theater. But they know, ICE is very clear that this kind of action creates a huge impact on the movement. It will help move policy at some point, and that’s why they’re trying to end them immediately.
TFSR: You mentioned that folks at Northwest Detention Center had been getting paid $1 a day instead of the minimum wage? This December, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, an organization led by incarcerated activists, called for nationwide “Shut ‘Em Down” demonstrations and facilities. Much of this organizing that they’ve done has been around the concept of prison slavery, the extraction of labor. I wonder if you could talk about GEO Group, the money it makes, the labor it extracts from those it imprisons at the Northwest Detention Center, and what public accountability looks like with that corporation.
M: That’s a great question, because I think at the end of the day, the immigration detention system is an extension of the prison system, which is not only to control certain populations, but to also continue exploiting them, even if they are incarcerated. The model of immigration detention across the country is the same, mainly privatized. We all pay for it, people in general in the US, except the billionaires who don’t pay taxes. But it also allows for these kinds of corporations, GEO, to exploit people because they’re literally a captive audience; they stay there with nothing to do, so the immigration detention system is set in a way that people have no choice but to work. There’s no programming offered at all. These “detention periods” are unknown. People detained are not serving a sentence. They’re fighting a case and have the right to ask for a bond, but like I said, it’s very hard to get bonds. There’s an incentive to not allow them to be released from detention because the government has a contract with these private corporations to keep a minimum guarantee. The government pays for so many people daily, regardless of the number. The same government wants to keep those people there, to at least say, “Oh, what are these? We pay for these many that are actually there.” We know very well greed takes them anywhere they want to go, and they’re allowed to. So they’re not only providing the minimum possible while saving many bucks but also taking advantage of this population there.
I don’t know the exact numbers, but one thing that really caught my attention when we started supporting the very first hunger strike in 2014 is that in the top demands, they said, “We want to get paid.” I was like, “What do you mean?” They say, “Yeah, we only get paid $1 a day if so.” They were often paid with something: they would get a coke or a bag of chips. They would make a competition amongst the units to see which was the cleanest. They would get one night with popcorn and a movie, which we called “The Hunger Games”. This continued exploitation made us understand that the system has a problem with us not having papers. They detain us because we’re working without papers. Yet, they have no problem for us working without papers for this company while we are detained, that is not a problem. As a matter of fact, GEO decides whether they pay us or not, and they can decide whether they pay just $1. I think it’s very clear GEO models that dollar a day based on the prison system. Everything comes out of the prison system. The US has already evolved this total exploitation of people, especially incarcerated people, and it just keeps expanding it wherever possible. That’s why it was so important for us to fight the work program here in Tacoma. I know a lot of people would say, “Well, but now that ‘we won’,” because the decision is being appealed by GEO, and we haven’t heard the final decision on the appeal. But people now don’t even have the option to work. They have absolutely nothing. But it would be even worse if we don’t try to fight back in certain areas.
I am pretty sure that the exploitation that continues happening in other places will continue to happen here. I’m pretty sure that these hunger strikes that we’ve seen constantly nowadays, after the decision of GEO having to pay the minimum wage, would continue, including the demand for regular pay if they’re going to work in detention. Today, people are still cleaning, people are still laboring, and they’re not getting anything. We still have a hard time getting state agencies to go in and take their part of the responsibility. There’s only one-way companies like GEO can get away with this, and that’s because all governments at every level are allowing them.
TFSR: And because it’s an agency, even though it’s propped up by these contracts with the government, I mean, even government-run facilities will contract with each other. Our local jail doesn’t do ICE detention, but it does hold federal prisoners, and it gets a per-head-per-night count payment out of the federal government for that. It’s incentivized at various levels to increase its capacity and hold people. So it seems like, even if it’s imperfect, the struggle around the basic wage is disincentivizing the private corporation, GEO Group, and its shareholders from… It’s attacking them at the purse, which is what they most understand. They obviously don’t understand ethics or human rights.
M: Absolutely. One of the things that I remember lawyers mentioning during the trial is that GEO was saying how it would hurt their pockets if the program ended. Yet, when they lost the lawsuit, the very next day, the first thing they did was cut the program. They ended the program. They would rather punish people in detention and have them deal with hygiene than lose any money. They say, “I would rather not have anybody cleaning anything than actually paying what the government told me to pay,” which is fair. Anybody who works in Washington, anybody, regardless of papers or not, has to receive the minimum wage which happens to be the highest in the country. So, at least in that sense, it’s a protection. But that shows you that if it was really so important for them to have the work program happening it wasn’t because they were referring to the fact that people would have a clean space. They were referring to their bottom line. They were referring to their pockets. It’s not about caring for people. It’s not that these facilities are built to take care of people. At the same time, they wait for a decision on deportation proceedings. Whenever I see on their Ways website the word “care,” it just makes me laugh.
TFSR: Yeah, that’s an attack on the language itself by implying that. [laughs]
You mentioned the suit around the minimum wage. One of your successes that’s listed on the La Resistencia website, if I understand, was helping to get a law passed to ban private, for-profit prisons and detention centers in the state of Washington, which may actually lead to the Northwest Detention Center closing in 2025 when the contract with ICE is up. Or maybe it just means the feds take it over. Does that mean people would be transferred to county jails, federal BOP facilities, or other government-run facilities? Or am I misunderstanding what happened with that?
M: Actually, we cannot enforce the law anymore. This is what happened. We modelled our law based on another one in California called AB 32. That law was challenged by the federal government, and California lost in the Ninth Circuit. Now, California decided not to push for it at the Supreme Court because, by the time this decision came down, the Supreme Court makeup was what it is today [majority conservative]. So, they didn’t want to set a precedent. California decided not to push anymore. Then Washington decided not to even enforce that law, HB 1090. I think that the win behind HB 1090 is, first of all, that we have, finally, the entire legislature. Even Republicans who at first were fighting against it, in the end, really couldn’t push against it. They didn’t support it, but they remained neutral at the end. It showed that, finally, Washington State was taking responsibility for having a detention center in our state, and it also showed that we changed the culture around incarceration in our state. That at least the government realizes that it’s wrong to have private detention. At least we can start agreeing on that. We still have not agreed on prisons altogether, but this is a good beginning. This is a good result of our pushing for so many years.
If the law had continued, it would have meant that once the renewal came, regardless of the decision of the Feds they would not be allowed to operate as a private entity, which meant that people had to be released or transferred immediately. We know for a fact that ICE transfers people everywhere, every day, throughout the country, to so many different places. They send them to jails. They send them to other private prisons. The argument sometimes of people saying, “Oh, but you’re just gonna shuffle people around,” is not an argument anymore because it’s still happening. Actually, we have seen that, for example, in the jail in Santa Ana, California, that was holding trans women; once the decision came not to hold them anymore, the vast majority of them were released. And again, let me remind everyone this is a civil proceeding, and ICE has all the power in the world to absolutely detain no one. When the time comes we can definitely push to massive releases. They would try to excuse some, especially those who came from prison or have been criminally charged. We would fight for them as we do for everyone. But it would be much more feasible to get the mass numbers of people released because the highest numbers of people they detained, as I mentioned at the beginning, come from the border. So they really have no excuse to keep them in the first place. Once the time comes (regardless of HP 1090, and we continue to fight to shut it down) either September 2025, before that or after that, we will push for mass releases. If people get transferred to other places, we have friends in other places who can help them push for their release and shut down whatever they’re sent.
TFSR: On the immediate horizon, do you have any upcoming campaigns or events you’d like to share with listeners, and how can folks otherwise support your work and get involved?
M: Sadly, we just celebrated the Day of the Dead, and we had to add another name to the altar we had prepared for some months. On October 27, Jose Manuel Sanchez Castro died in detention. The second one this year. He died in the medical isolation area. He was detained on October 22, and he died five days later. What we understand is that it’s not clear to us exactly what happened because we know ICE and GEO wouldn’t say anything public, but what we know for a fact is that he was withdrawing from fentanyl. He did not receive the medical care he needed. He was not sent to the hospital according to their own rules. GEO supposedly has to follow ICE rules and ICE supposedly manages the medical care directly in the detention center. Their own rules say that if somebody is suffering this kind of emergency they should be sent to the hospital, and they didn’t. He died on their watch.
Right now we are asking people to follow our call to action in our social media, which is to reach out to both senators here in Washington, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, to ensure that they know that they have to respond. We shouldn’t be having to pressure them to say something, to do something about another death. We had such a hard time moving them to do something last March when Charles Leo Daniel died after four years in solitary confinement. Why should we do it now? But here we are again, and we’re asking people to let them know that he was a resident of Washington. He was a constituent of them. His family needs answers. I think Cantwell and Murray should have been reaching out directly to the family and offering anything they could and should do. We want answers but also want to shut down the detention center. Both senators can work to ensure this contract is not renewed in September 2025. Still, most importantly, it actually shuts down now before there are more people in danger, being brought in every day. So that’s an immediate action that people can take. We’re also doing daily visuals at the detention center so people can watch our livestream or come if people are around the Tacoma area. They’re planning to be here any day, any evening during the weekdays or during the weekends, at 1 pm, people can take over us because it’s tiresome. We invite organizations or individuals who want to come and hold a video for Jose Manuel and Charles Leo Daniel, of course, to let us know. We can work out the details.
We have a big event on December 7 in Tacoma, not at the detention center. We are actually going to do it indoors. We mostly do all the actions outside the detention center. We’ve been there every day since March, but occasionally we hold events in other areas. On December 7, we will have a big opening of an exhibit, which we call Arte Callejero, meaning it’s a public exhibition that is going to go places. We’re going to meet at the East Side Community Center in Tacoma at 2pm; we’re going to have food, we’re going to have drinks, and we’re going to show the art that we’ve been developing of people who have been in detention. They’ve been asking us to support them and do public campaigns for them, which we call the Free Them All campaigns. We feature one person, but we’re asking for everyone’s release. And it’s really the history of La Resistancia, not so much as an organization, but the resistance within the detention center and the support outside. We want to take these exhibit places. So it’s actually being built for outdoor use. Don’t think that we’re going to museums and something like that. This is literally for the streets. We’re gonna go at some point outside the detention center. We even want to go to the Capitol here in Washington, to Olympia, once the legislature session begins, and put it right outside where the legislators come in into the building so they can see the faces and read stories. They can read people’s words, their own words, on why the detention center must be shut down and all detentions and deportations should end. If people are listening and thinking, “Hey, I would like this to come to my town, school, church, or street,” Why not? Let’s plan for that. We want this to go everywhere so people can see it and get engaged. We can all participate in ending this nightmare and ensuring people are safe.
TFSR: That sounds amazing. I hope folks take advantage of the fact that y’all are excited to travel with it.
In closing, the border’s everywhere. My impression is that border enforcement is the Brute Squad of the national police force that operates in almost every neighborhood, stealing our friends and loved ones. For folks not in the Northwest who want to learn more about how their local government colludes with the terrorization of immigrants and who hope to organize against these institutions, do you have any ideas of good resources or things to keep in mind, groups to follow, or ways to keep informed or get informed?
M: Yeah. There are prisons everywhere. Detention centers are mainly around the east and west coasts and along the southern border. But that doesn’t mean that it is not happening in the interior. They’re trying to build more. I would say just join any kind of immigrant group that you see around. There are a lot of mutual aid groups popping up here and there. I would definitely say that’s a good start as well. Just get in touch with your local mutual aid group. There are a lot of abolitionist groups in different places as well. If people like numbers, there’s a specific place to research so much detail about immigration detention, TRAC of the University of Syracuse. If you go to the ‘immigration’ tab, you’ll find everything they’re finding about numbers, and they list all the public attention facilities that at least we know of. It is a very good resource to go specifically and look at your state and city to see if you can find something that matches.
But just following social media nowadays also gives you many opportunities as well. Something as easy as: if there’s a jail nearby, there’s something that looks like a jail or a prison, swing by and see if there’s anybody there, actually doing some protest, because that’s the most important part. We can talk about it and research it. Still, it’s more important to directly support the groups on the ground. They’re facing the monster every day. It’s important to do pen pal, for sure, with people that are in prison or people that are in detention centers, but it’s more important to fight to shut down the system. I don’t think people just want to receive letters. They want us to do something that will guarantee their liberation and the liberation of everybody else because, at the end of the day, this is expanding. The prison system has found ways to continue expanding, and it will continue expanding no matter what happens. Everybody says in the election after whatever is decided, not by the people but by the Supreme Court or people in Congress, this system will continue expanding.
We need to do a lot, and we need to sacrifice, too. I think that’s important. Some people want to get engaged and just be limited in what they do. For us to really, truly create change, real change, we have to sacrifice the privilege that we think we have. Because the privileges that I think I have are worthless if somebody else doesn’t have freedom. We need to fight so everybody, absolutely everybody is free. We’re talking about liberation and talking about having our people with us and not being taken from us by this horrendous system of imprisonment and immigration enforcement.
TFSR: That’s a really good point. I don’t think I’ve mentioned the election, but obviously, anyone on this continent and in many parts of the world because the policies already impact everyone around the world of what happens in the Imperial core. It’s the same bureaucracies in the same institutions, no matter which person is in the executive seat, even if it looks slightly different. It’s been the same ramping up deportation machine and detention machine and disruption of people’s lives and economies in other parts of the world, no matter whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican.
Thank you so much for having this conversation and for the work that you do. I’m really excited to be able to share this conversation with the audience.
M: Thank you for the opportunity. Bye.
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Pittsburgh Fash Watch Transcription
TFSR: Can you give us a brief history and context of your group?
PFW: We’re antifascists that came together around countering White Lives Matter days of action in our area. pghfashwatch is a project for communication and publication that is used as a node for communication and publication by multiple area crews.
TFSR: Can you share whatever information you are comfortable sharing on what you observed online before alerting the press?
PFW: There is a dossier at https://pghfashwatch.noblogs.org/files/2024/09/cahall_dossier.pdf which details some of Brandon Cahall’s online activity. We reached out to the press to spread greater awareness of Cahall after marching to his house and conducting a flyering campaign throughout the city.
TFSR: For those who aren’t familiar with this kind of work, can you speak to guidelines and standards for investigations and doxing.
PFW: We would never release information on someone who we weren’t 100% sure was participating in neo-Nazi activities. Additionally, if any neo-Nazis want to leave their movement and actively cooperated, we would not publish details on them. The information that was published was developed over months and has been checked endlessly for accuracy.
TFSR: Can you give the listening audience a general sense of the socioeconomic and demographic composition of Pittsburgh? Is Millvale, the neighborhood where this incident took place, similarly composed?
PFW: Pittsburgh is obviously known for its steel industry, but the past several decades have seen a massive influx of “eds and meds” jobs. Any reputation as a tech hub is a bit overstated. Millvale, which is its own municipality that adjoins Pittsburgh proper, is slightly poorer and whiter than the city proper. That said, there are a lot of working class progressives and left-leaning people there, queer-friendly establishments, and a lot decent community oriented efforts happening.
TFSR: Do far right groups have a history of activity in the area? Can you talk about the groups you have found to be active? In what ways do their various goals overlap and where they diverge? For that matter, does membership in these groups overlap? What groups, for example have absorbed NJP (National Justice Party) membership if it is no longer a going concern?
PFW: Pittsburgh and Southwest PA more generally have long been areas with substantial white supremacist and neo-Nazi activity. Historically, there was a pretty active Nazi sympathizer named Edwin Flaig who was based in Millvale and active in the 1930s and 1940s. There was a lot of Klan activity in the Pittsburgh area in the 1920s. But people resisted then, just like they’re resisting now. There is some overlap betweeen Patriot Front and WLM. NJP had shared membership with a local bonehead crew, John Smaligo, that was organizing Nazi rock shows in the area for a few years. Joseph Jordan aka Eric Striker is believed to still live in the area. He was scared out of a bar last year. There is also a militia in the area whose leadership has been moving more and more towards “nationalist” politics. The extent to which these groups are connected or actively working together changes. WLM and Patriot Front seem to have a cozy relationship locally, which matches what we’re seeing and hearing in other regions.
TFSR: Also, on the topic of locality, technology like internet and label printers allow for a mass dispersal of propaganda that can appear to show large presence when maybe it’s just a small group or even a single crank. Are you able to get a sense of numbers from your investigations?
PFW: WLM publishes edited videos of their rallies and actions. In western PA they number no more than half a dozen. Based on their own videos and Patriot Front videos, cross-membership is likely. Patriot Front hasn’t been super active in our area, but we saw an uptick in activity after we marched on Brandon. PF tags and stickers were often found alongside or near WLM tags and stickers, seemingly put up around the same time. As concerning as any white nationalist activity is, there aren’t many of them and they are definitely outnumbered by antifascists.
TFSR: Where are these groups organizing? Have you observed some kind of tipping point in which they feel suitably emboldened to take their work into the real world?
PFW: WLM and Patriot Front have both adopted models of IRL organizing that minimize risk to their followers. Their public demos are extremely short and not announced in advance, which lowers the barrier to entry for risk averse cowards. At most, they’re out in public for 15 minutes. They do a lot more stickers, tagging, and banner drops than they do rallying. That says something about how confident they are.
TFSR: Can you speak to the divisions among white supremacists and white nationalists on the subject of Israel? Where do they diverge and where do they make common cause? In what ways has the genocide in Gaza exacerbated these divisions?
PFW: Cahall first came on our radar handing out neo-Nazi propaganda at a pro-Palestine rally. These neo-Nazis are all deeply antisemitic and try to equate all Jews with Israel in order to drive more antisemitism. We’re not really aware of how divisions among white supremacists show up around this topic.
TFSR: What was the nature of the propaganda that you observed being posted?
PFW: There’s more in the dossier above, but a lot of “White Lives Matter” stuff.
TFSR; Does this mark an uptick in activity for these kinds of groups or is it more of a churn?
PFW: WLM PA has become more active in the past year, in no small part due to Brandon Cahall’s propoganda and recruitment activities.
TFSR: Given the importance of Pennsylvania in the upcoming election, presidential candidates and their surrogates have spent a lot of time in the Pittsburgh area. Do you see this as a potential driver?
PFW: Not really. WLM, Patriot Front, and other decentralized neo-Nazi groups do not attach themselves to electoral politicians and outcomes in the same way that groups that were more prominent betweeen 2015 and 2020 did.
TFSR: On that subject, have you seen any meaningful responses to this kind of racism and organizing from anyone in government or law enforcement?
PFW: Aside from the occasional toothless comment from liberal politicians, no. Not a single one. This is of course unsurprising. As antifascists, we’re in this against the overt neo-Nazis in the streets as well as the fascism that our governments express. It’s important not to lose track of the three way fight.
TFSR: If Donald Trump loses do you foresee mitigation to the threat posed by white supremacist groups? To what degree do these groups still back him?
PFW: Trump’s loss and subsequent demobilizations degraded his semi-formal paramilitaries substantially (especially Proud Boys). WLM and others are not oriented around mainstream politics, so we don’t expect a Trump loss to substantially demobilize them.
TFSR: Do you think Democrats are willfully obtuse on acknowledging and addressing white supremacist organizing?
PFW: Elected Democrats believe that the existing power structures, especially law enforcement, are enough to keep us safe from white supremacists. This is obviously and categorically untrue. Obviously they object to and at times actively work or speak out against the more extreme elements of the far-right. But they don’t do much to actually disrupt day-to-day white nationalist organizing. There’s a good argument to be made that liberal policies fuel white nationalism, because they fail to unify and empower poor and working class people. Even if liberal politicians took a more active or effective role, we’d still advocate for everyday, street level antifascist activism.
TFSR: What types of responses have you seen from the community since this article was published?
PFW: The reaction to our on the ground campaign against Brandon Cahall was extremely positive. People in the neighborhood were willing to listen to us and took our fliers to both see the dossier and show their friends. Plenty of people were putting up stickers and flyers, and autonomously spreading Brandon’s dossier around for weeks. The whole effort activated a lot of people.
TFSR: Have you noted any response on the channels you monitor?
PFW: We haven’t seen public posts from neo-Nazis acknowleding this doxx. But we know that they were talking about it among themselves.
TFSR: If listeners want to learn more about antifascism, are there any texts or other resources you would recommend?
PFW: Shane Burley has written a book called Why We Fight and edited an anthology called No Pasaran! are good resources to look at for folks new to this stuff. Learning about your local antiracist or antifascist history is important too. Uplifting those histories is important. People maybe don’t know that the town of Carnegie physically resisted a Klan march in the 1920s, or that the town of Lily Pennsylvania scared off hundreds of Klan members around the same time. We’ve got to show people something that they can look back at and be inspired by.
TFSR: What can people in the community do to stay safe and help to prevent the spread of white supremacist propaganda?
PFW: If you see neo-Nazi propaganda/stickers, feel empowered to take it down. That shit is a stain on our streets. If you do, it’s awesome to get photos and info like time and place to pghfashwatch@protonmail.com. If you ever spot a white supremacist / fascist demonstration in public, attempt to get photos if it feels safe to do so. Photos of vehicles, shoes, jewelry, tattoos, and anything that could help identify these people is especially helpful. If you’re feeling froggy and have friends with you, confront them. Drown them out. Laugh at them. Let them know that they’re unwanted and unwelcome.
TFSR: Anything else you want to talk about or plug?
PFW: Free speech does not protect a person from others’ reactions to their statements. If you’re against nazis and their ideologies, you don’t have to to let their demonstrations or propoganda go unchallenged. They also are not entitled to hide behind face coverings and pretend to be normal community members
. … . ..
PGH Fash Watch Transkription
(thanks to Sophie!)
TFSR: Kannst Du uns einen kurzen Überblick über die Geschichte und den Kontext Deiner Gruppe geben?
PFW: Wir sind Antifaschisten, die sich zusammengeschlossen haben, um den Aktionstagen der White Lives Matter in unserer Gegend entgegenzuwirken. pghfashwatch ist ein Projekt für Kommunikation und Veröffentlichung, das von mehreren Gebietsteams als Knotenpunkt für Kommunikation und Veröffentlichung verwendet wird.
TFSR: Kannst Du uns alle Informationen über Ihre Beobachtungen im Internet mitteilen, bevor Du die Presse darauf aufmerksam machst?
PFW: Unter https://pghfashwatch.noblogs.org/files/2024/09/cahall_dossier.pdf gibt es ein Dossier, das einige der Online-Aktivitäten von Brandon Cahall detailliert beschreibt. Wir wandten uns an die Presse, um mehr Aufmerksamkeit auf Cahall zu lenken, nachdem wir zu seinem Haus marschierten und eine Flugblatt-Kampagne in der ganzen Stadt durchführten.
TFSR: Wenn Du mit dieser Art von Arbeit nicht vertraut bist, kannst Du über Richtlinien und Standards für Ermittlungen und Doxing informieren.
PFW: Wir würden niemals Informationen über jemanden veröffentlichen, von dem wir nicht hundertprozentig sicher wären, dass er an Neonazi-Aktivitäten teilnimmt. Darüber hinaus würden wir keine Einzelheiten darüber veröffentlichen, ob Neonazis ihre Bewegung verlassen wollen und aktiv kooperieren. Die veröffentlichten Informationen wurden über Monate hinweg entwickelt und fortlaufend auf ihre Richtigkeit überprüft.
TFSR: Kannst Du dem Zuhörer einen allgemeinen Eindruck von der sozioökonomischen und demografischen Zusammensetzung von Pittsburgh vermitteln? Ist Millvale, das Viertel, in dem sich dieser Vorfall ereignete, ähnlich zusammengesetzt?
PFW: Pittsburgh ist offensichtlich für seine Stahlindustrie bekannt, aber in den letzten Jahrzehnten kam es zu einem massiven Zustrom von Arbeitsplätzen im Bereich „Bildungs- und Medizinwissenschaften“. Jeder Ruf als Technologiezentrum ist etwas überbewertet. Millvale, ist eine eigene Gemeinde, die an Pittsburgh angrenzt, etwas ärmer und weißer ist als die eigentliche Stadt. Allerdings gibt es dort viele Progressive und Linksgerichtete aus der Arbeiterklasse, queerfreundliche Einrichtungen und viele gute gemeinschaftsorientierte Bemühungen.
TFSR: Haben rechtsextreme Gruppen in der Region eine Geschichte von Aktivitäten? Kannst Du etwas über die Gruppen sagen, die Deiner Meinung nach aktiv sind? Inwiefern überschneiden sich ihre verschiedenen Ziele und wo weichen sie voneinander ab? Überschneidet sich die Mitgliedschaft in diesen Gruppen überhaupt? Welche Gruppen haben beispielsweise die Mitgliedschaft in der NJP (National Justice Party) übernommen, wenn diese nicht länger existenzfähig ist?
PFW: Pittsburgh und Südwest-Pennsylvania im Allgemeinen sind seit langem Gebiete mit erheblicher Aktivität von weißen Rassisten und Neonazis. Historisch gesehen gab es einen ziemlich aktiven Nazi-Sympathisanten namens Edwin Flaig, der in Millvale lebte und in den 1930er und 1940er Jahren aktiv war. In den 1920er Jahren gab es in der Gegend von Pittsburgh viele Klan-Aktivitäten. Aber die Menschen leisteten damals Widerstand, so wie sie sich auch heute widersetzen. Es gibt einige Überschneidungen zwischen Patriot Front und WLM. NJP hatte sich die Mitgliedschaft mit einer lokalen, dummen Truppe, John Smaligo, geteilt, die einige Jahre lang Nazi-Rockshows in der Gegend organisierte. Man geht davon aus, dass Joseph Jordan alias Eric Striker immer noch in der Gegend lebt. Letztes Jahr hatte er Angst, aus einer Bar zu fliehen. Es gibt auch eine Miliz in der Gegend, deren Führung sich immer mehr einer „nationalistischen“ Politik zuwendet. Das Ausmaß, in dem diese Gruppen miteinander verbunden sind oder aktiv zusammenarbeiten, ändert sich. WLM und Patriot Front scheinen vor Ort eine enge Beziehung zu haben, die mit dem übereinstimmt, was wir in anderen Regionen sehen und hören.
TFSR: Was die Lokalität betrifft, ermöglichen Technologien wie das Internet und Etikettendrucker eine Massenverbreitung von Propaganda, die scheinbar große Präsenz zeigt, wenn es sich vielleicht nur um eine kleine Gruppe oder sogar um einen einzelnen Spinner handelt. Kannst Du aus Deinen Ermittlungen ein Gefühl für Zahlen entwickeln?
PFW: WLM veröffentlicht bearbeitete Videos ihrer Kundgebungen und Aktionen. In West-PA sind es nicht mehr als ein halbes Dutzend. Basierend auf ihren eigenen Videos und Patriot Front-Videos ist eine Kreuzmitgliedschaft wahrscheinlich. Die Patriot Front war in unserer Gegend nicht besonders aktiv, aber wir sahen einen Anstieg der Aktivität, nachdem wir auf Brandon zumarschiert waren. PF-Tags und -Aufkleber wurden häufig neben oder in der Nähe von WLM-Tags und -Aufklebern gefunden, die scheinbar etwa zur gleichen Zeit angebracht waren. So besorgniserregend jede weiße nationalistische Aktivität auch sein mag, es gibt nicht viele davon und sie sind definitiv zahlenmäßig in der Unterzahl von Antifaschisten.
TFSR: Wo organisieren sich diese Gruppen? Haben Sie einen Wendepunkt beobachtet, an dem ihr euch entsprechend ermutigt fühlt, ihre Arbeit in die reale Welt zu übertragen?
PFW: WLM und Patriot Front haben beide Modelle der IRL-Organisation übernommen, die das Risiko für ihre Anhänger minimieren. Ihre öffentlichen Demos sind extrem kurz und werden nicht im Voraus angekündigt, was die Eintrittsbarriere für risikoscheue Feiglinge senkt. Sie sind höchstens 15 Minuten in der Öffentlichkeit. Sie machen viel mehr Aufkleber, Markierungen und Banner-Drops als sie Rallyes betreiben. Das sagt etwas darüber aus, wie selbstbewusst sie sind.
TFSR: Können Sie die Spaltungen zwischen weißen Rassisten und weißen Nationalisten zum Thema Israel ansprechen? Wo gehen sie auseinander und wo machen sie gemeinsame Sache? Inwiefern hat der Völkermord in Gaza diese Spaltungen verschärft?
PFW: Cahall tauchte zum ersten Mal auf unserem Radar auf, als er bei einer Pro-Palästina-Kundgebung neonazistische Propaganda verbreitete. Diese Neonazis sind alle zutiefst antisemitisch und versuchen, alle Juden mit Israel gleichzusetzen, um noch mehr Antisemitismus zu fördern. Uns ist nicht wirklich bewusst, wie sich die Meinungsverschiedenheiten zwischen weißen Rassisten zu diesem Thema zeigen.
TFSR: Welcher Art war die Propaganda, die Ihr gesehen habt?
PFW: Das obige Dossier enthält noch mehr, aber viel „White Lives Matter“-Zeug.
TFSR; Bedeutet dies einen Anstieg der Aktivität dieser Art von Gruppen oder handelt es sich eher um eine Abwanderung?
PFW: WLM PA ist im vergangenen Jahr aktiver geworden, nicht zuletzt aufgrund der Propaganda- und Rekrutierungsaktivitäten von Brandon Cahall.
TFSR: Angesichts der Bedeutung von Pennsylvania bei den bevorstehenden Wahlen haben Präsidentschaftskandidaten und ihre Stellvertreter viel Zeit in der Gegend von Pittsburgh verbracht. Siehst Du darin einen möglichen Treiber?
PFW: Nicht wirklich. WLM, Patriot Front und andere dezentrale Neonazi-Gruppen hängen nicht in der gleichen Weise an Wahlpolitikern und -ergebnissen wie Gruppen, die zwischen 2015 und 2020 eine größere Rolle spielten.
TFSR: Hast Du zu diesem Thema sinnvolle Reaktionen auf diese Art von Rassismus und Organisierung von irgendjemandem in der Regierung oder den Strafverfolgungsbehörden gesehen?
PFW: Abgesehen von gelegentlichen zahnlosen Kommentaren liberaler Politiker, nein. Kein einziger. Das ist natürlich nicht überraschend. Als Antifaschisten sind wir dabei, sowohl gegen die offenen Neonazis auf der Straße als auch gegen den Faschismus, den unsere Regierungen zum Ausdruck bringen, zu kämpfen. Es ist wichtig, den Dreikampf nicht aus den Augen zu verlieren.
TFSR: Wenn Donald Trump verliert, siehst Du eine Abschwächung der Bedrohung durch weiße supremacistische Gruppen? Inwieweit unterstützen ihn diese Gruppen noch?
PFW: Trumps Verlust und die anschließenden Demobilisierungen haben seine halbformellen Paramilitärs (insbesondere Proud Boys) erheblich degradiert. WLM und andere orientieren sich nicht an der Mainstream-Politik, daher erwarten wir nicht, dass ein Verlust von Trump sie wesentlich demobilisieren wird.
TFSR: Glaubst Du, dass die Demokraten sich absichtlich stumpfsinnig verhalten, wenn es darum geht, die Organisation weißer Rassisten anzuerkennen und dagegen vorzugehen?
PFW: Gewählte Demokraten glauben, dass die bestehenden Machtstrukturen, insbesondere die Strafverfolgung, ausreichen, um uns vor weißen Rassisten zu schützen. Das ist offensichtlich und kategorisch falsch. Offensichtlich lehnen sie die extremeren Elemente der extremen Rechten ab und arbeiten manchmal aktiv oder äußern sich dagegen. Aber sie tragen nicht viel dazu bei, die alltägliche Organisation weißer Nationalisten tatsächlich zu stören. Es gibt ein gutes Argument dafür, dass eine liberale Politik den weißen Nationalismus befeuert, weil sie es nicht schafft, die Armen und die Arbeiterklasse zu vereinen und zu stärken. Selbst wenn liberale Politiker eine aktivere oder effektivere Rolle übernehmen würden, würden wir uns immer noch für alltäglichen antifaschistischen Aktivismus auf der Straße einsetzen.
TFSR: Welche Reaktionen habt Ihr seit der Veröffentlichung dieses Artikels aus der Community gesehen?
PFW: Die Reaktion auf unsere Kampagne vor Ort gegen Brandon Cahall war äußerst positiv. Die Menschen in der Nachbarschaft waren bereit, uns zuzuhören und nahmen unsere Flyer mit, um das Dossier einzusehen und ihren Freunden zu zeigen. Viele Leute klebten Aufkleber und Flyer an und verbreiteten wochenlang eigenständig Brandons Dossier. Die ganze Anstrengung hat viele Menschen aktiviert.
TFSR: Habt Ihr eine Reaktion auf den von Euch überwachten Kanälen festgestellt?
PFW: Wir haben keine öffentlichen Beiträge von Neonazis gesehen, die diesen Doxx anerkennen. Aber wir wissen, dass sie untereinander darüber gesprochen haben.
TFSR: Wenn Zuhörer mehr über Antifaschismus erfahren möchten, gibt es Texte oder andere Ressourcen, die Du empfehlen würdest?
PFW: Shane Burley hat ein Buch mit dem Titel „Why We Fight“ geschrieben und eine Anthologie mit dem Titel „No Pasaran!“ herausgegeben. Es sind gute Ressourcen für Leute, die neu in diesem Bereich sind. Es ist auch wichtig, etwas über die antirassistische oder antifaschistische Geschichte vor Ort zu erfahren. Es ist wichtig, diese Geschichten aufzuwerten. Die Leute wissen vielleicht nicht, dass die Stadt Carnegie in den 1920er Jahren einem Klan-Aufmarsch physisch Widerstand leistete oder dass die Stadt Lily in Pennsylvania etwa zur gleichen Zeit Hunderte von Klan-Mitgliedern abschreckte. Wir müssen den Menschen etwas zeigen, auf das sie zurückblicken und von dem sie sich inspirieren lassen können.
TFSR: Was können die Menschen in der Gemeinde tun, um sicher zu bleiben und die Verbreitung der Propaganda der weißen Rassisten zu verhindern?
PFW: Wenn Sie neonazistische Propaganda/Aufkleber sehen, fühlen Sie sich befugt, diese zu entfernen. Diese Scheiße ist ein Fleck auf unseren Straßen. Wenn Sie dies tun, ist es großartig, Fotos und Informationen wie Zeit und Ort an pghfashwatch@protonmail.com zu senden. Wenn Sie jemals eine Demonstration weißer Rassisten/Faschisten in der Öffentlichkeit sehen, versuchen Sie, Fotos zu machen, wenn Sie sich sicher fühlen. Besonders hilfreich sind Fotos von Fahrzeugen, Schuhen, Schmuck, Tätowierungen und allem, was zur Identifizierung dieser Personen beitragen könnte. Wenn Sie sich unwohl fühlen und Freunde bei sich haben, konfrontieren Sie sie. Übertöne sie. Lache sie aus. Lassen Sie sie wissen, dass sie unerwünscht und unwillkommen sind.
TFSR: Gibt es sonst noch etwas, worüber Du sprechen oder was Du ansprechen möchtest?
PFW: Die freie Meinungsäußerung schützt eine Person nicht vor den Reaktionen anderer auf ihre Aussagen. Wenn Du gegen Nazis und ihre Ideologien bist, sollst Du ihre Demonstrationen oder Propaganda nicht unwidersprochen lassen. Sie sind auch nicht berechtigt, sich hinter Gesichtsbedeckungen zu verstecken und so zu tun, als wären sie normale Mitglieder der Gemeinschaft.