Friend—The summer heat continues, but today there’s another type of ICE on my mind.

At a neighborhood council meeting a year or so ago, we had somebody come and speak and her father had just been deported by ICE. She didn’t know when she was going to—if ever—see him again.

When we take a policy like the creation of ICE, which has only been around since 9/11, I try to bring it down from a big idea to an individual—how is this affecting individual families and individual people?

You would have to be a heartless person to not be sympathetic to what people affected by deportations are going through. And if you were to imagine, what if that was happening to your family? It’s just really awful.

Maebe performing her duties as neighborhood councilmember

It’s embarrassing to me hearing conservatives talk about family, family, family, then not considering the families torn apart by agencies like ICE.

These are people who have been living here forever, performing hard labor, paying taxes, and yet they are treated like they’re nothing. ICE is destroying the family unit, and ICE needs to be dismantled.

As a trans person, I am sharply aware that family separation is an intersectional issue. Conservatives are trying to tear children apart from their parents in Texas, where gender-affirming care is being charged as child abuse. Parents in red states have been charged with crimes for helping their children access reproductive healthcare.

Calling out these hypocrisies will not make conservative politicians end these policies. But voting, supporting, and electing candidates who will legislate against them will.

When I moved to Chicago as a kid, I was really grateful to experience a greater diversity of people and community. The same thing applied when I moved here to Los Angeles.

We need to keep LA a sanctuary city, and that means having representatives at a federal level who will advocate for the protection of our neighbors.

When I’m in office, families will come first.

In solidarity,

Maebe