By now you may have heard the names Kilmar Abrego Garcia, David Huerta, Maximo Londonio, Llewelyn Dixon, or Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez — the names of just a few of the union members and leaders who have been detained by immigration officials in the last few months. As a labor movement, it is our responsibility to speak out against injustice in any form and to stand with those most impacted by policies aimed at dividing working people in any way. This is exactly what Oregon’s labor movement has been doing as executive orders were signed and as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were deployed to carry out an unprecedented attack on immigrant workers and their families with mass deportations, workplace raids, and deceptive tricks to target people based on their perceived immigration status.
No one should be surprised by these actions taken by the Trump Administration after running and winning on a campaign centered around Project 2025, the 900-page conservative wish list reflecting a right wing, anti-union, extreme Christian Nationalist ideology with a detailed plan to overhaul federal agencies — including more than 175 immigration actions. He ran on this blueprint, while trying to distance himself from its authors at the time, and then won on it. To date, about five months into his term, nearly half of the Project 2025 agenda is already implemented, according to an online project tracker.
To understand the cruelty and chaos created by many of these immigration actions, we don’t have to look any further than the last few weeks in Los Angeles. In LA, ICE has been conducting shocking raids around the city with workers being dragged off from construction sites, Home Depot parking lots, and kitchens. This extreme escalation of otherwise normal deportation tactics has led to protests, which in turn saw President Trump deploy National Guard troops in the first instance of a sitting U.S. President calling in the National Guard without the request of a state’s governor in over 60 years. As this all was escalating, David Huerta, the leader of SEIU California and SEIU-USWW, did what he has always done, and what we do in unions: putting solidarity into practice and defending his fellow workers. He came to the site of a mass deportation and was exercising his constitutional rights by conducting legal observation of ICE activity in his community when he was arrested and detained.
The work to defend immigrant workers here in Oregon will not be deterred — just as the LA labor movement leans into what’s happening on the streets of their city. Even as President Trump cynically directs ICE to expand deportations in pro-union states like Oregon, our labor movement will meet their force with peaceful, nonviolent protest alongside our communities and our partners. If ever there was a time to put the “when you take one of us, you take all of us on” slogan of organized labor and class solidarity into action, this is that time.
Our labor movement was built for tumultuous times like these, and we will never back down from a fight — or a bully. Because if the U.S. government can go after the leader of the largest union in the largest economy in a labor-friendly state like California, who is the government not going to target or come after? The Oregon labor movement unequivocally calls for an end to these inhumane, cruel ICE raids in our workplaces and in our communities — and we will continue to stand with our immigrant sisters and brothers as we hold the line for the entire working class. See you in the streets!
Graham Trainor is president of the Oregon AFL-CIO, the statewide federation of labor unions, representing over 300,000 working Oregonians.
