I still remember the anxiety I felt before hitting “send” on the mass email to legal clinics and pro-bono attorneys around the country. “URGENT — Protect refugees arriving at airports,” read the subject line, with a call to be prepared to head to international airports to provide legal support to refugees who may be detained upon landing in the United States.
That was Jan. 25, 2017. Within 24 hours, more than 1,600 volunteers had responded — just in time. On Jan. 27, a newly inaugurated President Trump announced what came to be called his “Muslim ban,” affecting even thousands of travelers who had their permission to enter the U.S. revoked while they were already on flights here. These were mothers, fathers and children, some who had lived in the U.S. for years, while others were just arriving as refugees to restart their lives.
It was pure chaos, but the outpouring of support made all the difference. Instead of a victory lap for Trump’s politics of hate, we demonstrated that Americans show up for their neighbors and don’t cower in the face of intimidation. This is what got us through the first Trump administration.
I’m proud that the organization I founded played a key leadership role in the fight against Trump’s Muslim ban. We filed two legal challenges and spent the last eight years tirelessly working to undo the damage it inflicted on Muslim and refugee families.
When Trump was reelected on a platform of even more virulent anti-immigrant hate, I felt less despondent than many of my family and friends because I knew we’d been here before. Those days at the airport eight years ago taught me three important lessons that will serve as a guide for the years to come.
First, “the cruelty is the point.” Adam Serwer’s five-word encapsulation of the Trump ethos was evident from the very start. The slapdash nature of the Muslim ban was a sign of incompetence, but it was also indicative of the administration’s lack of care for the consequences of their actions.
On the first day of his second term, Trump signed a slew of new executive orders, attacking immigration pathways from all angles: refugee resettlement, asylum and even the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship. These are policies that will harm immigrants, harm the country and throw the economy into chaos. Shock and awe continues to be the strategy, and the cruelty is meant to communicate a message. Scared people are more likely to willingly give up their rights.
Second, I learned that the only way to fight division is with unity. One of the most important lessons of the fight against the Muslim ban was how much we gain when we don’t give in to fear — when we fight together to uphold our shared values. Notably, it wasn’t just attorneys who showed up to defend the rights of Muslims and immigrants eight years ago. Alongside lawyers, thousands of everyday Americans showed up to airports to push back on Trump’s politics of division and fear and to defend their neighbors.
I remember newly arrived immigrants who came to offer their language skills, and New York state and federal legislators just to see how they could help — I remember even running into my own neighbors who had seen messages on Facebook and wanted to clearly define what kind of community they lived in. When you embrace unity instead of division, it opens up endless political possibilities. This time around, we need to continue to show solidarity across communities and interest groups and create a united front: the Trump administration is not just coming for the rights of immigrants.
Third, I learned that if you don’t fight, you’ll never win. Whether it’s the Muslim ban or mass deportations, accepting one form of dehumanization will inevitably lead to more. When people give in to Trump, it makes him push even harder. This is a lesson politicians of conscience desperately need to internalize.
Earlier this month, many supposedly pro-immigrant lawmakers tripped over themselves to help pass the anti-immigrant hate legislation misleadingly known as the Laken Riley Act instead of pushing back against the bad-faith arguments being used to justify it. This bill will greenlight the detention and deportation of those accused — not even convicted — of low-level crimes, as well as equip radically anti-immigrant state attorneys general with a host of new powers to challenge immigration policy. In short, it gave Trump many of the tools he needs to be able to carry out his extreme agenda.
Politicians capitulated without a fight because they thought they needed to look tough on immigration, but this is the beginning of a slippery slope with no end. If leaders give up on defending immigrants, what will stop them from betraying abortion, labor or LGBTQ rights?
Of course, things aren’t the same as they were eight years ago. The collective mood has shifted. Instead of mass resistance, political leaders are signaling mass resignation. But although we may not see spontaneous airport rallies, lawyers and communities are mobilized to protect the rights of our neighbors.
The Trump administration wants us to feel hopeless, but we are not. When we stand together to defend our shared values, we can stop the backslide, and in the process start building a country where we all belong.
Becca Heller is an award-winning attorney and the co-founder of the International Refugee Assistance Project, a global legal aid and advocacy organization centered on the belief that everyone should have a safe place to live and a safe way to get there.