Dear John,

If they thought this would be easy, they were wrong.

The past two weeks have seen the infiltration of federal agencies by Elon Musk and his toadies, the shuttering of humanitarian aid under USAID, the revving to life of a mass deportation and detention machine, and threats by President Trump to eject Palestinians and occupy Gaza.

They want to cut trillions from food stamps, health care, schools and housing programs. And then they’ll give tax cuts to billionaires and spend hundreds of billions on the Pentagon and mass deportations and detentions.

They think they can divide Americans and take control of the federal budget to benefit billionaires and weapons manufacturers. We won’t let them get away with it.

You’ve seen the legal victories, and some of the biggest, like the rulings against the mass buyoff of federal workers, depend on who holds the legal authority to make budget decisions.

Protests are springing up wherever they threaten everyday people, from federal workers on the streets of Washington D.C. to our immigrant neighbors in our cities and towns.

This month, they’ll try to pass a budget that fulfills their plans. We will show the country what they’re really up to.

They are doing everything they can to bend our tax dollars to their will.

We won’t let them.

In solidarity,
Alliyah, Aspen, Hanna and Lindsay

TRADEOFF: FAMILY SEPARATION VS. TRAVEL SAFETY

A tragic aviation collision on January 29, 2025 in Washington D.C. has left many people mourning the loss of a loved one.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) - responsible for the safety and regulation of civilian air travel - has historically been short-staffed and underfunded. The cause of the crash is under investigation, but recent attacks on federal workers by the Trump administration preceding the crash of American Eagle Flight 5342 left the FAA with significant gaps in key personnel, including an administrator.

The collision is the deadliest U.S. air disaster since 2001. And still, anti-immigrant leaders in Congress want to spend more than $175 billion in new taxpayer money on mass deportations to separate families.

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Sources: USAspending.gov, GAO

LEAVE FEDERAL WORKERS ALONE. CUT THE PENTAGON INSTEAD.

If you’re a federal employee, life these days is a tornado of layoffs, anxiety, and dubious promises of rewards if you willingly leave your job, all courtesy of Elon Musk’s DOGE.

This is supposedly an effort to save precious taxpayers dollars. But it’s also a transparently ideological place to start, since the entire federal workforce costs less than the contracts for one federal agency. In 2022, the entire federal workforce cost $271 billion, while the Pentagon spent $414 billion on contracts.

So far, the Pentagon and its nearly half-a-trillion dollars in contracts remain untouched.

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Photo courtesy of Marc Nozell from Wikimedia Commons

IMMIGRANTS ARE HERE TO STAY

Detaining and deporting immigrants is all wrong. People all over are showing up in defense for our immigrant communities.

We’re a few weeks into the second Trump administration, and it’s clear that Trump has launched the most blatant hate agenda against immigrants. Some lawmakers are giving him a helping hand, too.

Not only is the mass deportation and detention machine inhumane and heartbreaking, it would cost a lot - $88 billion each year over a decade, estimates the American Immigration Council. We found that $88 billion could erase medical debt nationwide for 40 million Americans, or a fraction of it - $11 billion - could provide free lunch to all schoolchildren in the United States.

From Know-Your-Rights trainings and detention abolition campaigns at the local level, to lobbying and lawsuits from immigrant rights groups at the state and federal levels, the immigration movement is countering the hate agenda with love.

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