Our March monthly meeting drew over 100 people in person and many more on Zoom to learn how to defend our neighbors. Lili Baiman from Defend and Recruit traveled from Columbus, Ohio to give us a hands-on training on ICE observation and verification. We laughed, we role-played, and we left ready to help.
Watch the Training
Photos from the Meeting
Welcome and a Year of Action
Brant opened the night the way he always does, by asking everyone to look around. These are your brothers and sisters. When things happen, you pick each other up. You help. You do what you have to do. Because that is what we do. Indivisible is a family. It is a movement. And we are here.
Jen reminded us that this needs to be the year of action. Between protests and monthly meetings, every one of us is doing something during the week. We are calling our representatives. We are getting on Zoom trainings. We are setting up rapid response in our own neighborhoods. There is something for everyone, whether you can be out on the streets or only have a couple of hours a month from your couch. The Indivisible North Pinellas team still needs volunteers, and a lot of the work is the not-glamorous behind-the-scenes kind. If you have a few hours, we have a place for you.
Meet Lili Baiman
Our guest speaker, Lili Baiman, was born in Mexico and immigrated to the United States with her parents as a child. She benefited from DACA, became a US citizen, and has spent her entire career fighting for immigrant and worker justice. She traveled from Columbus, Ohio to be with us. She came to us through Defend and Recruit, an organization that helps groups across the country build strong ICE defense networks to support our immigrant communities.
Lili was clear and warm and funny. And she has lived this. She has family that has self-deported. She has cousins raising their children in Mexico while their US-citizen husbands shuttle back and forth. She is not speaking in theory. She is speaking from her real life.
The Immediate Goal
Lili told us her goal is very basic. She wakes up every morning thinking about whether people in her community can get to school, to work, and to worship, and then home again safely. Everything she taught us was in service of that goal.
She has watched the tactics shift over the past year in Columbus. What used to be one or two ICE incidents per month is now five, six, or seven incidents per day. Border Patrol agents and ICE are showing up at gas stations, at apartment complexes, at small businesses, at courts when people show up for hearings, and at schools as parents drop off their children. The pattern keeps changing. We have to keep up.
“My goal is very basic. Can people get to school, to work, and to worship, and then home again safely. That is what we are doing.”
Lili Baiman, Defend & Recruit
What We Do: Before, During, and After
Lili broke it down into three phases.
Before a detention. Educate impacted communities and citizens on their rights. Pass out know-your-rights cards. Build trust at the neighborhood level so that when something happens, people know who to call.
During a detention. Show up. Document. Deter. We are not there to physically stop ICE from taking someone. That is not safe for the person being detained, and it is not safe for us. We are there to make sure their rights are not violated, to record what happens, to get more people to the scene so ICE leaves the neighborhood faster, and to warn anyone else in the area to get to safety.
After a detention. Support the family with legal help, financial help, and what Lili emphasized most: emotional support. Hold federal agents legally accountable through the documentation we gathered. Connect families with the Florida hotline and with the National Lawyers Guild. The after-part is where a lot of organizations drop off, and where families need the most help.
Your Three Rights
Lili reminded us that what we are doing is defending three rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
First Amendment. You have the right to record law enforcement in public. In Florida, you have to stand at least 25 feet away. That is a stricter rule than most states. You can still get good footage at 25 feet, and our phones zoom in very well.
Fourth Amendment. You have the right to refuse search and deny entry to private areas without a warrant. This applies to your home, your business, your church, and any building that employs anyone. ICE agents will say they have a warrant. Ninety-nine percent of the time they do not have a judicial warrant. Ask to see it. If they cannot produce one signed by a judge, they cannot come in.
Fifth Amendment. You have the right to remain silent. Lili taught us a phrase to repeat to anyone being detained: no hables, no firmes. Do not talk. Do not sign.
SALUTE: How to Verify
When you respond to a reported sighting, the information you collect needs to be accurate, not rumor. Lili taught us the SALUTE method.
S, Size and strength. How many agents? How many vehicles?
A, Activity. What are they doing? Knocking on doors? Pulling over cars? Trying to enter a building?
L, Location. Cross streets. Business name. Which entrance.
U, Uniform. What lettering on their vest? ICE? ERO? DEA? FBI? Plain clothes? Hoodies?
T, Time and date. We are tracking patterns. The more we record, the more we see how they move through our cities.
E, Equipment. Vehicles, license plates, cages in the back, dark tinted windows, added antennas.
Lili told us that in Columbus, two volunteers built a map of every incident based on these SALUTE reports, and they were able to track exactly which freeways the agents used and which direction they turned when leaving a given office. That is the power of small documentation done consistently.
The Role-Play
Then Lili pulled volunteers up to act out an actual ICE encounter at a grocery store. Denise played the woman with the groceries. Two of our volunteers wore vests labeled ICE and ERO. Lili and a partner played the verifiers showing up to record.
It got chaotic, fast. They yelled at her. They ripped her grocery bag open. She did not know what to do. The verifiers were narrating loudly the whole time: “I am backing up. I am cooperating. I am not interfering. I am only here to make sure her rights are respected.” Even from 25 feet away, recording, they were calm and firm.
Lili reminded us afterward that even untrained bystanders sometimes show up and make things worse by heckling or by trying to physically intervene. Always ask yourself: is what I am doing helping or hurting the person being detained? If it is going to hurt them, do not do it.
How to Get Involved
Lili shared what works in her Columbus neighborhood. People have repurposed what they were already doing. Dog walkers became patrollers. Stroller moms became patrollers. Bikers and runners became patrollers. Faith leaders set up their churches as Fourth Amendment workplaces. Teachers protected their schools. Local artists made vests and signs. Every neighborhood found its own way in.
Our team will be sending more information through email and Facebook as we get this set up here. We are not going to be ready to do ICE watch in our neighborhoods tomorrow. This takes time. But the rapid response groups are already forming in Florida 13 and Mid Pinellas, and we will be plugging in with the other Indivisible chapters in the area. Watch the Facebook group for updates.
If you want to support this work financially, please give what you can. Trainings like this take resources, and your contributions keep them coming.
Announcements
From Me to Us. Katie Green is offering a series of three monthly workshops to help us stay grounded and centered in a chaotic world, and to learn how to talk with the people in our lives who do not see things the way we do. See Katie if you are interested.
Operation Overpass. Susan Grimes reminded us about the upcoming pop-ups. Hold the letters. Bring your own signs to either side. Stay safely off the median. And keep showing up.
Voter Action Pinellas. Rose Jenkins is at every meeting helping people register and get set up for vote-by-mail. Look for her at protests too. If you live in Safety Harbor, Tarpon Springs, or Belleair Bluffs, do not forget your municipal election on March 10.
House District 13 Candidate Forum. Brant reminded us about the second forum sponsored by the Democratic Hispanic Caucus on Tuesday, March 10 from 6 to 8 PM at La Mida in Largo. Registration required.
Brian Beckman for FL State House 58. Eileen Hanky is looking for canvassers, phone bankers, and folks to host meet-and-greets. Brian with a Y. brianbeckmanfl.com.
No Kings 3. Register now. We did 5,000 last time between the overpass and Gulf to Bay. The goal this time is 7,000 or 8,000.
Thank You
Thank you to Lili for traveling all the way from Columbus to be with us. Thank you to Denise for picking her up at the airport, for her introduction, and for being the lead actress in the role-play. Thank you to every volunteer who put on a yellow vest, played a part, or worked the registration table. Thank you to St. Mark Lutheran Church for hosting us, and to everyone who showed up tonight in person and on Zoom. We are getting ready. Together.
See you in a month. Go do good things.
