Immigrant rights activists braced for crackdown as Trump threatens to target 'leftwing' groups
Source: The Guardian
Sat 20 Sep 2025 06.00 EDT
Last modified on Sat 20 Sep 2025 06.59 EDT
Immigrant advocacy organizations and activists are bracing for a crackdown from the federal government following threats from the Trump administration to root out and criminally prosecute non-profit groups it believes are sympathetic to “leftwing” politics. Donald Trump and his closest allies have periodically threatened immigrant rights activists and nonprofits, including those that distribute food and water to migrants or provide immigrants with legal services, with arrest.
But their rhetoric has been heightened in the days following the killing of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk this month. Over the last week, JD Vance described civil rights groups as a “domestic terror movement”, while Stephen Miller, a top Trump aide and the architect of the US president’s mass deportation agenda, vowed that the administration would hold nonprofits, including immigrant-rights and police-reform organizations, “criminally liable” for what he baselessly described as “coordinated attacks” on Ice agents.
And on Tuesday, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice) followed up with a warning: “Anyone – regardless of immigration status – who assaults an Ice officer will face federal felony assault charges and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.” The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), meanwhile, has expanded its definition of “threats” to include the filming Ice operations.
For Brandon Lee, communications director of the immigrant rights non-profit the Illinois Coalition For Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) the threats represented “yet another moment where the Trump administration is attempting to curtail speech, curtail organizing, to scare our people”. “This is another example of the atmosphere of fear that the administration is trying to create,” said Lee.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/20/immigrant-rights-groups-trump-crackdown