This statement was originally published by Friends of the Earth International.
Stop the hatred, xenophobia and state killings: seeking a better life in an unstable world is not a crime.
We are joining in solidarity with migrant communities on the frontlines of racially motivated violence at the hands of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and those fighting against the militarisation of borders everywhere.
The violence against migrant communities including the intentional targeting of Black migrants, racial profiling of Latinx and Native peoples, targeting of children, medical neglect leading to 38 known deaths in ICE custody since 2025, as well as the recent killings of Keith Porter Jr., Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti are further evidence of the disregard for human life and due process that ICE, CBP, and DHS have long practiced.1 2
In this moment of tragedy and mobilisation, we reassert that:
- Police militarism and border policing uphold racism and reinforce xenophobia. Black and Brown people are disproportionately affected by state violence at the hands of police, border enforcement and otherwise. The border and surveillance industry separates families, erodes human rights, and promotes xenophobia around the world.
- Public protest is a powerful expression of solidarity and a protected right. Community organising, mutual aid, and expressions of dissent are critical forms of care that remind us of the ways we are connected. State repression at the hands of ICE, CBP, and DHS is both unconstitutional and inhumane, as migrants, displaced peoples, and those who support them continue to face kidnapping, escalating violence, and hateful attacks.
- Just and dignified treatment of migrant peoples is protected under the US Constitution and the Geneva Convention. ICE, CBP, and DHS are using racial profiling and violent methods to detain people, implementing cruel forms of arbitrary detention and collective punishment, and traumatising communities in the process. In detention, immigrants’ basic human rights are being violated. There have been dozens of reports that detainees lack access to adequate water, food, medicine, and hygiene facilities. 3 4
- Migration is a form of climate adaptation. Mobility, in response to changing conditions, is one of humankind’s most naturally occurring rhythms. All people should have the right to stay and the right to move in the face of climate breakdown. As people relocate in the face of environmental, political, or economic uncertainty driven by the intervention of imperial powers such as the United States and the transnational corporations whose operations the U.S. facilitates around the world, governments are responsible for creating and ensuring pathways for migration that are safe, secure, and dignified while also ending such interventions that create these uncertain conditions to begin with.
The Trump administration must immediately cease these horrendous actions and policies that dehumanise and oppress immigrant populations.
Together with FoEI and FoE US, we firmly oppose the militarisation of borders, and the repression and violence being carried out by government agents and enabled by corporate greed and prison privatisation across the United States and globally. We unequivocally support the ongoing peaceful public protest and dissent in solidarity with migrants and displaced peoples and call for the abolition of ICE.
- Eight people have died in dealings with ICE so far in 2026. These are their stories | ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) | The Guardian. ↩︎
- 2025 was ICE’s deadliest year in two decades. Here are the 32 people who died in custody | ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement). ↩︎
- Immigrants in overcapacity ICE detention say they’re hungry, raise food quality concerns. ↩︎
- In recorded calls, reports of overcrowding and lack of food at ICE detention centers. ↩︎
Credit (main image): Composition created by Friends of the Earth International.
