John Lewis and ‘Good Trouble’: Stand Up for Justice, Stand Up For Our Immigrant Neighbors

The late civil rights icon was arrested in defense of immigrant rights in 2013: “We cannot rest, we cannot be satisfied until we have comprehensive immigration reform,” he said at the time

The late John Lewis, congressman from Georgia and civil right icon, was no stranger to what he coined as good trouble. Throughout his life, he was arrested at least 45 times in his fight for a more just nation for all, including on behalf of a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in 2013. Lewis, along with seven other members of Congress, was detained after staging a sit-in outside the U.S. Capitol. “We cannot rest, we cannot be satisfied until we have comprehensive immigration reform,” he said at the time.

So it’s no surprise that immigrant justice was one of the top concerns at many of the more than 1,600 Good Trouble rallies last week (as well as subsequent demonstrations from throughout the weekend), which brought Americans together in communities both large and small. “Progress may be slow,” wrote Rural Organizing’s Matt Hildreth, who attended one rally in his South Dakota hometown. “But after seeing hundreds of Good Trouble rallies across the country—including in places like Brookings, South Dakota—we can confidently say that in Rural America, the good trouble lives on.”

In California, Melanie Gonzalez Aguilar was one of hundreds of demonstrators outside the state Capitol building in Sacramento. It was personal, after “ICE agents appeared at her father’s workplace, where he is employed in home utilities,” The Sacramento Bee reported. That same day, she protested shocking arrests carried out by Border Patrol at a local Home Depot. “It was a very small protest,” she said, “but it still fills my heart to see our community in south Sacramento speaking up because we don’t usually see that.”

In Michigan, community members in Detroit honored Lewis’ legacy by organizing a mutual aid effort and collecting food for immigrant families in the area. “He talked about good trouble — the food drive is making good trouble because we’re trying to disrupt the attack on immigrants by feeding families,” Debbie Rosenman, co-chair of Indivisible Fighting 9, told the Detroit Free Press. “People are coming out of the woodwork to try to do things to help their community, to make an impact and to speak out.”

In Arizona, most demonstrators outside the state’s Capitol in Phoenix “carried signs protesting the administration’s immigration policies, in particular the expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the continued immigration crackdowns,” the AZ Mirror reported. 80-year-old Elissa Hugens, “who said she’s been protesting since the 1960s,” referenced cruel ICE quotas that are harming, not helping, our communities.

“‘He’s taking away people that we really care about just to count bodies,’ Hugens said, adding that the issue of immigration, ‘hurts her’ the most,” the AZ Mirror continued.

In Florida, site of the cruel and inhumane Everglades detention camp, immigrant neighbors were on the minds of many Melbourne demonstrators. “We definitely have a lot of bad trouble going on,” Anna Dahl told Florida Today. “People that I work with in the community are experiencing discrimination. We had a mom with six children who was recently snatched up by ICE and put in a detention center for three weeks and nobody knew where she was.”

“I’m out here for people like her,” Dahl continued. “This is our country and there are a lot of people in our own community who don’t feel safe.”

Pro-immigrant actions continued into the weekend. Back in California, Japanese American-led Tsuru for Solidarity was among local groups to help organize a protest condemning possible immigration detention in their communities, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Among those raising alarms are Japanese American residents, who have been issuing urgent reminders that what’s past is prologue and that the administration’s current actions represent a threat to the freedoms of all Americans.

“I’m here because the Japanese were interned, my father was interned, and it can’t happen again, but it is happening, it’s shameful,” Lynn Yamashita told ABC 7 News.

The “Good Trouble” protests follow June’s record-setting “No King” protests, which drew more than 5 million people all across the country, making it one of the largest protests in American history. The rousing discontent from Americans continues to show that the more they witness the overreach, costs and chaos of mass deportation, the more they reject it and want dignity and relief for their immigrant neighbors. So keep speaking out, because good trouble depends on you and me.

“Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others,” as Lewis wrote in his farewell essay. “Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.”