Since the beginning of Trump’s second administration, we’ve witnessed an extreme escalation of state terror as ICE, DHS, CBP, DEA, Federal Marshals, FBI, National Guard, and the Marines are turned on the people.
Trump 2.0 is driven by far-right ideologues, some of whom advocate for what Nazi-era philosopher Carl Schmitt called “the state of exception”: declaring that the leader may operate outside the law with unlimited power due to an “emergency.” Trump’s Schmittians orchestrated the firing of all but the most fringe, conspiracy theory-addled loyalists from state agencies. Now, with executive power consolidated, the administration is using emergency declarations to target vulnerable communities, and anyone deemed ‘enemy’ to their authoritarian state.
Invasion and emergency rhetorics also drive mass detention and deportation. In June, federal immigration arrests in Washington state doubled. Due to an influx of “Big Beautiful bill” funding, ICE is now recruiting 10,000 “brave and heroic Americans” to “DEFEND THE HOMELAND,” offering $50,000 signing bonuses and student loan forgiveness (something stripped from other students).
Right here in Spokane, our neighbors have: been chased down and tackled in their own yards; had unmarked vehicles parked outside their homes for days; had their car windows smashed and been violently dragged out; been arrested in campus parking lots; and been kidnapped by masked agents, driven to Idaho, and warehoused in a jail in Hayden.
This is what state terrorism looks like.
We blew past “constitutional crisis” months ago, leaving “experts” squabbling about it in the rearview mirror. The National Guard and Marines were sent into LA in June (over the mayor and governor’s objections) because people were resisting ICE. Now troops are marching on DC, with threats coming to other Black/Brown cities – Chicago, Baltimore, Oakland. Witnessing the state practice of Enforced Disappearances is another way we know “it’s not coming, it’s here.” In fact, in her June 30 Spokane Town Hall, Representative Pramila Jayapal told us, “ICE is acting like a terrorist force.”
On June 11, Cesar Alexander Alvarez Perez and Joswar Slater Rodriguez Torres dutifully appeared for a last-minute appointment with ICE in Spokane. They were unlawfully detained and loaded onto a van with the intent of removing them to the immigration detention center in Tacoma. Hundreds of residents quickly gathered to try to stop the state from kidnapping the two immigrants.
At first Mayor Lisa Brown pledged to support First Amendment rights and to uphold the Keep Washington Working Act (the state’s sanctuary law), but a few hours later she issued an emergency declaration with a curfew. Hundreds of law enforcement from Spokane police and the county sheriff’s department descended, slamming people to the ground and dragging them over pavement. In an extreme escalation of force, they deployed pepper balls, rubber bullets, bean bag rounds, smoke bombs, helicopters, surveillance drones, and heavily armored vehicles against residents.
31 people were arrested trying to stop ICE from taking those young men. Those arrested included the legal guardian for Perez, former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart, who later remarked: “You’re doing everything legally right, and they break those laws and illegally detain people. What other option do you have other than civil disobedience?”
Three days later a queer community organizer and prominent human rights advocate was arrested going to Spokane’s Pride festival. While most others received misdemeanor charges, they were charged with six felony counts of “unlawful imprisonment.” Apparently, in our upside-down world, trying to stop the state from kidnapping your neighbors is imprisonment. You decide the real crime.
But it gets worse. On July 15, state terror rode into town in the early morning hours, this time in the form of Federal Marshals. They showed up at people’s homes, arresting nine and charging them with serious federal felonies.
The mayor said she was outraged, but the irony is that she justified the June 11 emergency declaration saying she didn’t want national agents to take over. Yet here they were one month later, ushered in by her actions. Quietly shutting down protests is often narrated as a way to protect people, but the truth is more complicated. The violent escalation by local law enforcement, enabled by the “state of emergency,” gave the feds all they needed to slap severe charges on the “Spokane 9.”
State terror isn’t coming, it’s here. The kidnapping of our immigrant neighbors, the brutal treatment of protesting Spokanites, the Trumped up charges–all of it is meant to scare us. We’re meant to think twice about supporting the basic humanity of immigrants (and transgender people, women, pregnant people, BIPOC, disabled people, and on and on).
We’re meant to remain silent and compliant. That’s how authoritarian leaders create space to operate outside the law.
Spokane has defended its neighbors from state terror before. In the back of St. Ann’s Catholic parish, there is a bound volume entitled “A Sanctuary Covenant of Shared Responsibility.” In 1985, dozens of parishioners and allies signed and sent the government a commitment to risk imprisonment for sheltering a Salvadoran refugee family.
“You don’t need spies and informants to find us. We are here, showing our faces, stating our names,” the document reads. Among the signatories is Lisa Brown, our current mayor. This was part of a nationwide Sanctuary Movement of churches sheltering those fleeing the brutal torture and mass murder of people in Central America. Death squads, partly funded by the United States and assisted by the CIA, killed thousands, including several Jesuit priests (as Gonzaga University well remembers).
With Trump 2.0 now permitting immigration arrests in churches (in violation of a centuries-old legal and moral tradition previously followed in U.S. immigration enforcement), the message of St. Anne’s sanctuary covenant echoes even louder today as a call for courage. Regardless of what many institutional leaders are saying, people who are targeted by the state and vigilantes are never protected by silence, compliance, or repression-in-advance.
Some of us are hoping institutions will save us (the courts, local and state government, universities, the Democratic Party, etc.). They can certainly help stem the tide of terror, but only we can stop it – collectively, caringly, strategically, and in solidarity. Social movements drive strategy – not lawyers, not politicians. Every day, Trump 2.0 is kidnapping and disappearing more people, eroding rights, consolidating power.
Now is the time to practice being a good ancestor. If you are already part of the resistance, invite someone else in. History has proven that people power is the most reliable tool to overthrow authoritarian regimes and build just societies. Courage builds courage.
Two things you can do today: 1) sign this petition calling for Community Solutions following ICE-Arrests in Spokane; and 2) register for a Resistance Lab training with Rep. Jayapal.
Dr. Joan Braune is a faculty member at Gonzaga University and does research and public education on countering fascist movements. Dr. Judy Rohrer is a scholar-activist and director of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Eastern Washington University. The analysis expressed here is their own, not that of their institutions.
