Word Artisan VT will be closed today in solidarity with the general strike, ICE Out of Everywhere. I am also striking in solidarity with the people of Minneapolis who have bravely stood up to ICE’s reign of cruelty and terror there. These caring citizens of the state of Minnesota are still standing up for their neighbors on the ground in brutally cold temperatures.

I am striking to protest ICE and CBP’s racial profiling, tearing apart of families, abduction of children, and disappearances of our immigrant neighbors to concentration camps with horrible conditions and no oversight. I am striking to protest ICE and CBP’s violation of our 1st, 2nd, and 4th Amendments and other civil rights, as well as the rule of law. Agents beat down doors with battering rams, rip people out of cars after smashing their windows, strike or shove people to the ground and beat them, spray copious amounts of pepper spray and tear gas, and shoot and kill innocent people. This is not America. These are not in any way, shape, or form my values which are compassion, cooperation, and love.

In Vermont, ice is for skating and fishing. Not cruelty and murder. I support sane, measured, thoughtful immigration reform and pathways to citizenship. In America, except for the original Indigenous people, we are ALL immigrants. Immigrants created and built what America has achieved in the past 250 years.