Many have passed ordinances intended to shield migrants from efforts by the incoming Trump administration to eject them from the country.
Summary
Democratic-led cities and states are mobilizing to resist Trump’s planned mass deportations, with measures like sanctuary policies, legal challenges, and public opposition.
Cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia have vowed to shield undocumented residents, and LA’s school district declared itself a migrant sanctuary.
Trump plans to sign executive orders and withhold federal grants to enforce deportations, but legal obstacles are expected, as seen during his first term.
Opponents argue deportations harm communities and families, while Trump allies assert a mandate for strict immigration enforcement.
It won’t stop with immigrants. Once the apparatus is already set up, they’ll use it against anyone who tries to stand in their way.
“First they came for the,” and all that. It’s better if it’s organized through an armed local government, instead of just some kind of pocket of freelance resistance that’s easy to paint as criminal. But you have to. There is no other option.
I think they will be prepared to make dire examples of any state that so openly defies them. Insurrection Act, federal troops losing all pretext of "law enforcement action" and just going apeshit, finally ending with the arrest and/or execution of governors, state legislators, and anyone else involved they can get their hands on.
I think they are planning to try that, yes. It’s not guaranteed to succeed, but cowardly acquiescence born out of fear is one easy way it can be made to work.
I'm not saying to cower, I'm just pointing this out because a lot of people, likely including the leaders of these states, are still of the mindset that the proper, and therefore only, path of "resistance" is through lawsuits and picket-sign demonstrations.
I fear that they are going to be utterly shocked, and more importantly, unprepared, if and when the reaction to this "resistance" is lawless mass incarceration and murder.
I'd like to see them fuckin try. The Republicans keep calling these liberal cities warzones, I know Chicago and New York would be happy to bare their teeth and show just how accurate that moniker can sometimes be.
I don't know that story has a good ending for Trump. An advantage that the SA had was that they could very easily control what the world saw of their actions. They controlled the people with the cameras, and the people writing articles I'm newspapers. So they were able to sanitize their own image and portray the aspects of their strength that they wanted to.
That's not possible today. Nearly every single person has a cell phone with a camera and unlimited access to the internet. Those challenges are not insurmountable but inevitably live broadcasts of what's happening would appear around the world. America is not so powerful that they can afford to not care at all about how they are perceived. The US involvement and conduct during the Palestinian genocide and the upcoming second term of Donald Trump has put an alienating pressure on many foreign nations. This is to the advantage of other super powers like the EU and China who are alternatives to trade and political relationships with the US. If the US was seen to have a secret police dolling out indiscriminate violence in their pursuit of mass displacement and genocide it would probably turn that alienating force into a flood.
Trump is a bumbling idiot in terms of competence and ability. That being said I don't think he would do something that totally destroys his ability to economically benefit from his presidency. I can't guarantee that that is the case because he is nearly unpredictable, but I perceive his loyalty to himself as being above any loyalty he has towards the neo-fascist project. I think it's more likely he would err on states rights and do things like refuse federal funding to states that refuse to fall in line regarding mass displacement and his other policies. Using outright violence didn't work for him last time.
But then again he might not care because he isn't going to live forever, and he might see his current presidency as his final mark on history. He might do everything in his power to shape the nation into whatever vision he has for it. He could create a secret police of die hard maga loyalists. He could (and has said he will) turn the American military on the people. He could start wars of territorial aggression. Really the sky's the limit once he's in that chair. He could have "burning of the reichstag" emergency powers act pushed through with his slim congress majority, suspending all constitutional rights and the political process under some guise of "protecting the nation from the radical left". I'm preparing for that inevitability. But I don't know that it's a guaranteed one.