As ICE continues to divide and harm our communities across North Carolina, we send love and support to our immigrant and Latine neighbors targeted simply because of their skin color, language, or where they shop, live, or work.
Below are several local resources, which include ways to volunteer and where to donate.
Learn about volunteer opportunities here.
North Carolina organizations to support:
Benevolence Farm would also like to offer an additional perspective to consider in this moment:
We know what it feels like to be separated from our loved ones, whether through our own incarceration or that of someone we care about.
Because we know how the criminal legal system and policing targets and disposes of people, we recognize when similar dehumanizing language is used to justify harm toward entire communities.
We are people with “violent convictions”. We love people with “violent convictions.”
And we wanted to use our platform to gently remind everyone that no one is disposable, y’all.
It is so tempting to use narratives like “ICE should only go after violent criminals” or “They did that to an innocent person or a citizen.”
This messaging creates a hierarchy of who deserves protection — justifying the use of force, abuse, and kidnapping against anyone labeled ‘criminal’ or ‘non-citizen’.
We are all capable of causing harm; that’s part of being human. We do need accountability, but we need systems that address harm without stripping away people’s humanity.
The criminal legal system does the opposite. It dehumanizes people, reducing people to their worst moment while ignoring the root causes: oppression, poverty, trauma, or unmet needs.
Meanwhile, people with wealth and power cause harm at massive scales and rarely face life-altering consequences.
We want to build communities that meet people’s basic needs and address harm through accountability and healing, not punishment.
From this country’s founding, laws and policing have targeted Black, Brown, Indigenous, disabled people, trans people and people who have no money.
We know that the criminal legal system is harmful, abusive, inequitable and rooted in historical racism.
It is so easy to “become a criminal” in this country that 1 in 3 adults has an arrest record. The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, even those considered authoritarian.
Yet, those in power — CEOs, politicians, people with wealth and connections — will never be held accountable for the enormous harm they cause:
Harm like:
- Corporate exploitation like wage theft, unsafe working conditions, and environmental destruction that sickens entire communities.
- State violence through war, police killings, and incarceration itself.
- Policy decisions that deny people healthcare, housing, and food — structural violence that causes suffering and death on a massive scale.
These harms impact thousands or millions, yet the people responsible face no consequences.
Meanwhile, individuals—especially disabled people, trans people, Black and Brown people, immigrants — are criminalized and punished.
When we debate about who deserves deportation or incarceration based on their ‘guilt’ or ‘innocence,’ we’ve already accepted that state violence is legitimate — we’re just arguing over who should endure it.
Instead, let’s focus on dismantling the systems that harm all of us.
Let’s highlight how ICE is stoking fear and tearing families apart.
Let’s highlight how governments and corporations are expanding abusive, for-profit detention businesses. (Article 1, Article 2, Article 3)
Let’s highlight how anti-immigrant rhetoric bolsters white nationalism and white supremacy. (Article 1, Article 2, Article 3)
We can stand in solidarity with our neighbors — regardless of citizenship or criminal record — while affirming their full humanity.
We will keep us safe.
Let’s check in on one another, offer rides, pick up groceries, build relationships, and resolve conflict without policing each other.
We will get us free.
And we can do all of this without pushing people to the margins.
(Thank you to Interrupting Criminalization for the inspiration and framework that helped us turn our lived experience into written word. Their resources can be found here.)
