The U.S. military stalks the streets of Los Angeles. Masked federal agents abduct immigrants, “documented” or not—and even U.S. citizens—in broad daylight. The Supreme Court just backed up Trump in his gutting of the rule of law, and helped lay the basis for shattering the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees birthright citizenship. (See: "Fascist Supreme Court Puts Basic Rights in the Cross-Hairs and Takes a Sledgehammer to the Rule Of Law") And now, Republi-fascists and the FBI are “investigating” and threatening political and civil rights organizations that are organizing against this.

This is an essential and very dangerous part of the rapidly accelerating leaps to fascism—it is urgent to stand with and defend all those under attack, and do so as part of uniting all who can be united to defeat Trump MAGA fascism—before it is really too late.

On June 11, Republican Senator Josh Hawley threatened CHIRLA (Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles), Union del Barrio, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation with federal investigation, accusing them of “aiding and abetting criminal conduct” during the mass protests in LA against the terroristic ICE raids against immigrants and Trump’s mobilization of the National Guard and Marines into the city. Hawley sent letters to those groups ordering them to preserve almost all internal communications and other records like donor lists. Go here for a statement from the revcoms (revolutionary communists) in LA against this outrageous fascist attack.

CHIRLA is also one of the many organizations targeted by House MAGA fascists with another outrageous threat of possible federal investigations and charges, for providing help to immigrants. On the same day as Hawley made his announcement, Mark Green, head of the House Homeland Security Committee, along with another member of the committee, announced a “probe” of over 200 organizations for being “involved in providing services or support to inadmissible aliens” under the Biden-Harris administration. They sent letters to those groups demanding they answer a “survey that includes questions on the government grants, contracts, and disbursements they have received; any lawsuits against the U.S. federal government they are petitioning; amicus briefs they have filed in any lawsuit brought against the U.S. federal government; any legal service, translation service, transportation, housing, sheltering, or any other form of assistance provided to illegal immigrants or unaccompanied alien children since January 2021….”

The Republi-fascist congressmen did not list all the groups they are targeting but did name a few aside from CHIRLA—including Catholic Charities USA, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Haitian Bridge Alliance, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Make the Road New York. According to Democratic members of the same committee, some of the groups named had not even received any federal funds, and the information demanded is all available to the public or government agencies—making clear the intent of the “probe” is to “bully groups they hate.”

Also on June 11, Republican California State Assembly Member Kate Sanchez called on the state Legislature to conduct an audit of state funds that have gone to CHIRLA. And in yet another threatening move against CHIRLA, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and other Republican committee members announced on June 24 that they had sent a letter to Angelica Salas, CHIRLA’s executive director, “demanding all documents, communications, and receipts regarding the organization's taxpayer-funded grants” they received during the Biden-Harris years “to support its radical open-borders and soft-on-crime policies.” 

At the same time, members of the immigrant and Chicano rights group Centro CSO have been politically targeted by the FBI. On June 12, FBI agents raided the family home of Alejandro Orellana in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of LA and arrested him. He was released the next day but faces federal charges of “conspiring to commit civil disorders” and “aiding and abetting civil disorders,” including for allegedly passing out face shields and water bottles to protestors—at a time when the police were firing rubber bullets and tear gas against people in the streets protesting Trump’s vicious ICE raids. Then on June 26, another Centro CSO member, Verita Topete, was surrounded by FBI agents as she was walking alone. They served a warrant allowing them to seize her phone and temporarily detained her before releasing her.

As the revcoms in LA said in the statement after Josh Hawley’s fascist attacks on CHIRLA and others:

Hawley’s threat to haul organizations that are defending the rights of people who are under attack before an inquisition and to go on fishing expeditions is designed not just to tie up, cripple and wreck these groups but to drive them out of operation and set them up for prosecution. This is an utter violation of what are supposed to be constitutionally guaranteed rights of freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom from self-incrimination. It is intended not only as fascist political theater, but to actively repress these organizations and to threaten and intimidate all opposition to what is ever more clearly a fascist regime. THIS MUST BE URGENTLY OPPOSED BY EVERY ORGANIZATION AND INDIVIDUAL WHO VALUES FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF EXPRESSION AND ORGANIZING.