Listening to Detained Immigrants for the Path to Liberation: Q&A with Maru Mora Villalpando, Founder of La Resistencia
We’re honored to have spent time in conversation with Maru Mora Villalpando, Founder of La Resistencia, one of Tides Advocacy’s grantee partners. Based in Tacoma, Washington, this nonprofit organization is doing incredibly important work to empower those impacted by the immigration enforcement system and end the unjust treatment of undocumented immigrants in this country. Maru shares her personal experience that inspired her work with La Resistencia and some real truths about cross-racial solidarity around immigration and how the movement against deportation is connected to other movements against policing and racism. Read more to hear from her powerful insights from listening to detained immigrants for the path to liberation.
Tell us about the vision of La Resistencia and what drives your organization’s work in this moment?
Maru: We have a very clear mission: to end all detentions and deportations in Washington state but really across the nation and across the world. We believe that no one should be in cages, especially migrants that have been forced to leave their home country to find survival. The driver is really our own community - we all in La Resistencia have been either forced to migrate and face the deportation machine, or we have had loved ones who have been victims of the immigration enforcement war against immigrants, especially immigrants of color and low-income. We want to see our families together. We would rather stay home with our families where we were born and live together happily. We make sure where we have been pushed to migrate to, we should be able to set roots and be with our families and create new communities.
What are some of the main activities La Resistencia focuses on?
Maru: Our organization officially started on March 7, 2014 when the biggest hunger strike in a detention center occurred so far. But it actually began in September 2013, when I saw many undocumented immigrants doing civil disobedience actions throughout the country. I learned of an action in Arizona trying to stop deportation buses near the border with Mexico for an operation called Streamline. Young people had already taken the leadership earlier, but I started seeing undocumented adults with children like me who were willing to risk themselves and their families to call attention to this horrible nightmare of deportations and detentions. I decided to do civil disobedience, started calling people and it culminated in February 2014 when we started our first civil disobedience in Tacoma. We blocked a detention center in northwest Tacoma, stopped two buses and one van taking people to be deported. I didn’t get arrested or detained but people in detention and through the media, the families learned what we were doing - that showed us that people had been organizing and were prepared to launch a hunger strike where 1200 people stopped eating to call attention to inhumane conditions and family separation. We were called by them and their loved ones to come and help them. They gave us the directive and that’s how La Resistencia began.
We are in constant communication with people detained and their loved ones. They are our leadership. We do what they cannot do inside. They are the experts on the system. We collect information on what they see should happen and we take it on the outside.
We have to bring people to the detention center so general people can learn about what’s happening. Once a month, we have solidarity days, where we stay outside for a couple of hours and do video or phone calls, put them on speaker and have people listen directly to the detained.
To shut down the detention center, we’re facing a very complicated system so we have different tools - including public policy. We have worked on state laws to regulate private business, because the detention center is a private business. We have worked with the city council and legislature at congressional level to pressure politicians to take this on. We also have campaigns on the environment - because the detention center was built on a superzone site, one of the most polluted places in the Tacoma area, right next to dangerous industrial zones. The main point is we need people to come and support and help us build political and public pressure.
Tides Advocacy’s Black Love Rising campaign is about highlighting love for Black people, communities and our collective liberation. Our value of "Embrace & Empower" combines the spirit of "Black Love Rising" with creating an inclusive space that fosters understanding and cross-racial solidarity. Can you share examples or reflections on what cross-racial solidarity means to La Resistencia?
Maru: Immigration enforcement goes against any immigrant of color that happens to be poor. We saw clear racist attacks when the Trump administration was in office. We saw how they described Haiti and different African countries. Immigration law started as a racist law and for many years stopped migration from specific countries, always giving preference to migrants from eastern Europe. Recently, the Biden administration opened the door to Ukrainians with no problem - this shows the immigration system has the capacity and capability to let anyone in. They have the methods and money to do so but they don’t do the same for Afghans, Haitians and others who should be allowed to come in. We want everyone to come in and not be based on the color of skin, but that’s what we’re facing.
The biggest number of people being detained happen to be people of color, Latinx which also includes Black people from Brazil to Mexico that are from Afro-descent. We see how racism plays in the detention center again and again. Whenever there are hunger strikes, we were told that immigrants that are Black or don’t speak English are treated worse by the guards than lighter-skinned and English-speaking immigrants. In 2018, 60 Cubans went on a hunger strike because they were supposed to be released from detention after 90 days. We supported them until they were let out but we saw that the first set of immigrants let out were light skinned and the last set were Black Cubans.
It’s not a coincidence, it’s clear that it’s a racialized system. We cannot build divisions. No matter where you’re from or what you did, we don’t want anyone to be detained. When the George Floyd murder happened, we saw Latinx and Black immigrants do a solidarity action in the detention center as an example of what the United States does and we should all work together to end that.
Who or what motivates your commitment to this movement?
Maru: What motivates me from day one is my daughter. She was born in the U.S. and while she may have an easier time as a U.S. citizen, maybe not because she is the daughter of undocumented Mexicans. We had some privilege being light skin and speaking English, so we know that we need to use that for the benefit of our community. Being an undocumented immigrant for many years myself, you are alone, because your community is spread out. Most of us come from places where you have a lot of support from your family and neighbors, but here you have to build it. I learned of so many families being separated and I didn’t want that for my family or my neighbors in the community that I was building. I was tired of the fear. The main common factor of stories I would hear was fear - telling loved ones, neighbors, of being found and seen as an undocumented immigrant and what would happen to your children. I don’t want to pass that on to my daughter and the community that I'm building.
When I decided to do civil disobedience, my daughter was young so I did the first one myself. But the second action we did, we did it together. She did another on her own when Trump came to Washington. As a family, we understand community is first. You can’t do anything by yourself. We are clear that we have to sacrifice something. We’ve seen the results year after year. The system pushes back but we keep going. And there are many people that agree with us.
Are there any recent projects or campaigns from La Resistencia that exemplify what it means to lead with love for community and liberation?
Maru: We have several campaigns coming up. One of them is called HB1417 - which is a law that passed in Washington State that obligates the Washington State Department of Health to go inside the detention center and do inspections unannounced. That’s never happened before. We want them to check on detention conditions - people should have access to sunlight, clean air, quality food - basic things you would assume they’d have. Most importantly, once inspections are done, we want them to be publicized and should be used by us on the outside to continue pressuring for the release of people detained and also give people the right to file lawsuits. This hasn’t been done in any other state yet.
Another important campaign for us - we have seen an increase in digital detention under the Biden administration. We know there’s 30,000 people in detention centers but there are 150,000 detained through digital monitoring and surveillance. When we see immigrants checking their phones, it’s very likely they are checking an app created by a private business that knows their location, voice data, facial recognition - this is still detention. We don’t know how much data they are obtaining or how invasive it is. They have to take photos and send voice messages. People are afraid if something is wrong with the app, that ICE will come to detain them. They are always afraid and not allowed to work. This is a phase we’re trying to fight against. The reason we have 30,000 in cages and 150,000 in digital detention is because it’s a business. We don’t want to normalize this and the use of phones to track people and their loved ones. It’s outrageous. The point of any of our campaigns is people should be free. No one should make money out of our families being separated or monitored or threatened by immigration customs enforcement.
What do you wish more people understood about the immigration enforcement system right now?
Maru: The immigration enforcement system and privatization of this system didn’t come out of nowhere - it came out of the prison system and is an extension of slavery. The beginning of this country was to take over people’s land and bring other people to work on that land and become property. The U.S. has always been about capital and property, not about people. When people understand these systems are not about safety and the connection with the immigration enforcement system, they will understand there is nothing to talk about safety.
When DHS was created and put immigration enforcement underneath, they wanted people to get confused and distracted about all the problems we face. Immigrants, poor people, Black people are not at fault because there is no housing, healthcare, or education open to everyone. This is created by the capitalist system we are a part of. These systems keep us separated, afraid and fighting amongst each other. We saw in the 90s the privatization of immigration detention as a great way to control our communities and make money for them. We keep being seen as goods and products. We are cheap labor and don’t have social security so we pay more interest in loans, higher rent … it’s expensive to be poor. They figured out another way to criminalize us and make money out of this, so there’s a constant way to control us and make money at the same time. We hope people can see these connections and understand why we need to work together on so many fronts. We can’t call for the end of immigration enforcement without calling for the end of the prison system and policing system.
What do you want funders to understand if they want to help invest in immigrant rights and the movement to end deportation?
Maru: It’s difficult to find funding when you want to shut down an entire enforcement system. Most people think of us as radical or violent. But what is violent? Funders need to understand what real violence and what criminalization is. If funders believe that our movements should be led by us, they have to understand that our community is not college educated. Most of our members are not comfortable reading and writing, don’t know how to write grants or run an organization or administration. What we know is that we want to keep our families together and we’re willing to do whatever it takes to do that.
If we want leadership of those impacted by the system, we have to meet them where they’re at. Right now, where they are is not in a position to all of a sudden take over a nonprofit, handle finances, and write beautiful grants. Funders also shouldn’t be afraid when we say we want to abolish ICE - we’re not afraid of saying it, so people shouldn’t be afraid of listening to it. Understand that if the leaders believe this is the solution, then that’s the solution. Let’s be honest and truthful to what we say we want out of communities of color.
To learn more and stay in touch with La Resistencia, visit their website and follow them on Instagram & Facebook
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