Last week, three U.S. citizen children—ages 2, 4, and 7—were deported from the United States by ICE alongside their mothers. One of them, a 4-year-old child with Stage 4 cancer, was sent away without their medication or any way to reach their doctors, according to the family’s lawyer. There was no exception made. No mercy. Just a cold assertion of power.
We also know that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a father of three, was deported to El Salvador without any due process. These stories do not include the hundreds of people who have been unlawfully deported with no hope of returning to their homes or families.
These are not isolated tragedies. They are the predictable results of policies designed to punish people for crossing borders, for seeking care, for trying to survive. And they are happening as the political tide once again shifts dangerously toward authoritarianism.
May Day is a declaration. A reminder that the struggle for dignity is waged far beyond the picket lines, in kitchens, classrooms, border crossings, and ballot boxes. It calls us to confront the systems that hoard power—and to honor the people who create and sustain it, yet are routinely denied its benefits.
Immigrant communities have never been guests in this country. We are builders and dreamers, yes—but also defenders, nurturers, and revolutionaries. We are parents, neighbors, teachers, caretakers, movement leaders. Immigrants are part of the emotional and civic infrastructure of this country—essential not just to how we survive, but to how we live.
This year, May Day arrives 100 days into Donald Trump’s renewed grip on national politics. White supremacy—long embedded in our immigration and law enforcement systems—is again backed by rhetoric seeking to justify the unjustifiable. Executive power is once again being weaponized to punish, to expel, to erase. We cannot afford silence.
Just in these first 100 days:
- One executive order threatens to punish sanctuary cities, effectively coercing local governments into cooperating with mass deportations.
- Another seeks to rearm police departments and dismantle federal civil rights oversight, while protecting officers accused of abuse.
- A third imposes discriminatory English-language requirements on truck drivers, a thinly veiled attack on immigrant labor.
Each of these actions targets communities along multiple lines of identity and struggle—immigration status, race, language, labor, and safety. This is why our approach at Women’s Foundation California has always treated racial, economic, environmental, and gender justice as inseparable. The most effective policy solutions aren’t siloed—they recognize the complex and intersecting lives people lead. And they invest in the people already doing the work.
That’s why we fund and follow the leadership of organizations rooted in justice that have been doing this work long before the headlines:
We are at an inflection point. These policies are not theoretical. They are harming children, families, and futures every single day. This is their home. This is our home. And the future we’re building must reflect that truth. On this May Day, we refuse to look away.