The night of July 17 we paintbombed the facade of the Immigration and Citizenship Services building. We aimed for the big logo on the side of the building. We came up with and carried out this action quickly and spontaneously because we felt the urgency of attacking those who enforce borders. We especially felt this in the wake of Willem Van Spronsen’s death while fighting those maintaining concentration camps in the U$A. Acting in remembrance of our dead keeps the fire burning within us. We hope that this action and others add to the struggle against borders, until all borders are destroyed.
March & Noise Demo Against Borders & to Remember Willem van Spronsen
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Spread widely! Three fliers attached. Half-reluctant Facebook event here.
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“On July 13, Willem Van Spronsen was killed by police while apparently taking action to disable the fleet of buses that serve the Northwest Detention Center, a private immigration detainment facility.”
We hope to act to honor Will’s memory in solidarity with all those affected by the border regime – from the detention centers to the desert.
The ‘End ICE Contracts! Mayday Solidarity Rally’ is a show of solidarity with workers all around the world with a specific emphasis on solidarity with the local immigrant community. The march will highlight corporate sponsorships of ICE.
Meet at the Octavius Catto Statue
[May 1st from 2:30 PM – 5:30 PM at South Penn Square]
On the night of April 5th I sabotaged a Wells Fargo ATM using glue and a piece of credit card. Wells Fargo is part of the web of institutions and individuals that makes borders possible. Against borders and nations!
Early this morning, the home and car of leading ICE/HSI agent Bryan McPherson at 2600 Cedar St. appears to have been targeted. His house was spray painted with the words “Resist ICE,” and more importantly, his vehicle was disabled and thousands of dollars in damage done. This act of political vandalism follows after the names and addresses of several ICE agents in PA were released on the Internet last summer. At the time of this writing it is unclear whether this is an isolated incident, or whether other officers have been targeted.
In 2018, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported over 270,000 people. ICE officers separate children from their families; several have died in custody. Bryan McPherson is the Assistant Special Agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a division of ICE in Philadelphia. It is unclear whether or not he will be able to use his vehicle to report to work and deport more people.
Earlier today in Philadelphia, PA, around 9 AM, #AbolishICE protesters created a noisy disruption outside the ICE office during morning traffic. They said they were joining in a national response to President Trump declaring a state of emergency to fund his border wall.
As ICE’s brutality continues to shatter lives, we continue to document the struggle to abolish the institution.
We’ve compiled more stories of radical struggle against ICE, the border patrol, and the police; documenting the different tactics, successes, and philosophies from around the country.
We would like to thank the all of the contributors for each article that we’ve compiled, and the websites that originally published those writings and from which they were borrowed.
Again, this volume, like the first, is only one very limited snapshot of the vast anti-ICE uprising, which developed powerful expressions in many more than the few cities represented here.
Comrades in Harrisburg, PA have contacted us and requested that we share this image, with their accompanied text.
We dropped our banner on an overpass near Harrisburg,PA in solidarity with this past month’s prison strike. We want to honor their wishes to keep this issue in the public eye, letting our friends (and enemies) on both sides of the prison walls know that this is struggle will be ongoing,and that it will be at the cutting edge of the radical agenda until the last ashes of the last prison are blown away. We also wanted to make the same connection the striking prisoners did by acknowledging the struggle of the migrant families imprisoned in our own backyard by a proto-fascist regime. One of the three family detention centers in operation, Berks Family Detention Center is a monument to all we find disgusting, so we decided to put up a monument of our own in defiance. We we’re inspired by our comrades in Frederick,MD, and we hope we can inspire even more actions like this.
This has been a long time coming. For the next 30 days, every day, we will be profiling/exposing a member or supporter of Keystone United (KU) and Keystone State Skinheads (KSS). We will be largely concentrating on Pennsylvania fascists, with a few exceptions.
Every fall, KU/KSS comes to our city in secret and attempts to hold a march, rally and party to varying levels of success. They hold this event under the auspices of a “Leif Erikson Day Celebration.” Their logic being that Leif Erikson was (allegedly) the first “white” man (even though whiteness as a label was not a thing at the time, and Erikson would have considered himself Norse with no allegiance to Whiteness) to form a settlement in this hemisphere, and therefore began what they see as the rightful domination of these lands by the settler-colonial empires of Europe.
This year’s Leif Erikson day is October 9th, a month from today. The actual holiday, not the KSS rally, which they refuse to announce publicly anymore due to fear or mass opposition. Starting tomorrow, we will release a new article each day. We will be exposing KU/KSS members, former members, associates and supporters. We will reveal their homes, workplaces, criminal histories and other personal information.
Many of those we are exposing have gone to great lengths to hide their associations and cultivate a personable image, and the truth will likely be a shock to those around them. Many of them appear to be normal parents or friends, co-workers or neighbors, but moonlight in one of the most notorious neo-nazi organizations in the U.S. Keysone Untied especially loves to infiltrate general conservative circles and subtly move people more into the racist extreme or just normalize those ideas in the dialogues there.
We realize this is a controversial practice for some, so here is a brief summary of this group’s history and current activities to put it in perspective…
Keystone State Skinheads was founded in late 2001 at a Waffle House in Harrisburg, PA. KSS was part of a push to form state-based White Nationalist Skinhead crews in all 50 states that began in Indiana with the Hoosier State Skinheads, previously known as the Outlaw Hammerskins, who would later also go by the name Vinlanders Social Club and spread that brand around the country. Arizona (Canyon State Skinheads), Maryland (Maryland Skinheads aka MDS), and Ohio (Ohio State Skinheads) were just some of the other states where the idea found root.
An early pic of Keystone United.
KSS was one of the more successful iterations of the statewide skinhead crew idea. Though they suffered an early defeat in York, PA in 2002, when Antifa and local residents teamed up to chase the nazis out of town, KSS persisted and picked up steam into the late 2000’s, when they engaged in several large rallies around Pennsylvania, including the 2008 Leif Erikson Day, which drew 70+ hardcore Neo-nazis from all over the country (at a time when rallies of that size were extremely rare), including members of the Vinlanders Social Club and Volksfront, groups that had previously been hostile to each other. During this period, KSS ramped up attacks around the state, including in Philly. Assaults, harassment and vandalism against left wing community spaces were common. Many pitched battles occurred in the Punk and Hardcore to keep KSS from gaining a foothold in Philly, as they had in many other cities in PA.
Also around this time, the KSS label was avoided in favor of “Keystone United,” which allowed KSS to organize with White Nationalists and Neo-nazis who did not meet the male skinhead criteria that KSS was founded under. Basically, all members of KSS can be considered members of KU, but only male bonehead members of KU can be “patched in” members of KSS. Outright Neo-nazi activities, such as the White Power show being organized for September 15th somewhere in PA, are organized as Keystone State Skinheads.
White power concert being organizing by KSS this month.
Political advocacy and demonstrations are organized as Keystone United. It is also a common strategy to “remove” anyone accused of a crime from KU, embracing them as KSS instead, allowing them to keep the image of KU sanitized for the media. For the forthcoming profiles, we will at different times refer to people as members of KSS and/or KU, but for all intents and purposes, the difference is a matter of public image, and the groups are essentially the same.
KU/KSS members rally against refugees in Harrisburg.
During this period, KU/KSS began to do things like bring dozens of neo-nazis to an NAACP organized community meeting in response to the vandalism of a synagogue in Wilkes Barre by nazi teens who were friends with members of KU, in order to intimidate opposition and dominate the discussion with the fruitless act of debating nazis. Keystone United also brought out a large contingent to support an Anti-Immigration rally in Harrisburg, and its members attended the National Policy Institute conference, for at least one year.
KU/KSS has strong ties with Matthew Heimbach, formerly of the Traditionalist Worker’s Party, and hosted a secret conference for Trad Worker’s “Traditionalist Youth Network” in Philly in 2016. Heimbach attended with Paddy Tartleton and several TWP members, but the bulk of the attendees were KSS/KU members.
Traditionalist Youth mid-Atlantic gathering in Philly in 2016
The threat represented by KSS/KU is a dual one. Firstly, they engage in White Nationalist activism and political work. Steve Smith, a co-founder of KSS, is in his 2nd term as Republican Committeeman in Luzerne County. He was elected the first time as a write-in candidate, but campaigned for his 2nd term and gathered over 70 votes. He has been joined this term by KU member Ryan Wojitowicz, who was also elected to the same position. Keystone United actively campaigned for both candidates.
Not only has Luzerne County’s GOP neglected to try and campaign anyone against this nazi incursion, but both Keystone United members have become regular attendees at GOP party functions in Luzerne County. They are often joined by “Joe Mulligan,” a Pennsylvania KKK leader who is friendly with Smith, a former klansman.
Keystone United will also engage in political activism around issues of immigration, refugees, gun rights, and support for President Trump. They regularly participate in “Overpasses Across America” rallies on highway overpasses to protest against immigration and accepting refugees.
KSS members participate in an anti-refugee protest as The “European American Action Coalition,” one of many front groups
KSS is under the Blood and Honour USA umbrella, and have alliances with those crews as well as The Traditionalist Workers Party (until that groups implosion earlier this year) and the Pennsylvania State Militia (whom they have rallied with at Overpasses Across America events).
In late 2016 in Harrisburg, KSS members were in the area during a National Socialist Movement rally to provide security for the event since one of the speakers was Matthew Heimbach of the TWP. At the time both the NSM and TWP were members of “The Nationalist Front,” which, along with League of the South, Vanguard America (the group James Fields was marching with in Charlottesville 2017 before he plowed his car into a crowd of protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring many others) and other smaller nazi orgs.
Nationalist Front marching Charlottesville at Unite the Right 1.
The Nationalist Front made up the single largest Fascist bloc at Charlotesville, and were heavily involved in the fighting that occurred. In the fallout of UTR1, The Nationalist front has been largely reduced to an NSM front, with the dissolution of TWP, the re-branding of Vanguard America to Patriot Front, and the recent departure of League of the South.
The second threat is that, behind the veneer of “gentle” white nationalism, KSS/KU is still a bonehead crew. In their over 15 years of existence, their members and supporters have been involved in countless acts of violence.
Here is a timeline of just some of the known attacks by KSS:
In June 2002, KSS members Robert Gaus, Douglas and Joseph Hoesch were arrested by police outside the Suburban Diner in Feasterville, near Philadelphia, for assaulting a man who asked them to stop throwing food at his table. The victim was struck several times and left on the diner’s floor. All three pleaded guilty to a charge of simple assault and were given suspended sentences
In September 2002, KSS members Todd Sager, Jason Hayden, and Christopher Keough, beat a former member, Christopher Morosko, who refused to return his KSS “colors”. The three pleaded guilty to assault on March 3, 2003, and were all released for time served.
On March 23, 2003, KSS members Keith Carney (Carney has since left KSS), Steve Smith and Steve Monteforte were arrested on ethnic intimidation charges in Scranton, Pennsylvania, for assaulting an African-American man who, according to police, was walking home in the early morning
In April 2003, two associates of the Lancaster Keystone State Skinheads were arrested and charged with ethnic intimidation and terroristic threats for making racist and threatening comments to three black patrons in a Lancaster-area bar.
In January 2006, KSS members Edward Robert Locke and Todd Clair Sager were charged with multiple counts in connection with a violent bar fight in March 2005 in New Stanton. Police claim Locke stabbed two men. Locke was charged with attempted homicide and four counts of aggravated assault while Sager was charged with criminal solicitation to commit homicide and criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault.
Also in 2006, KSS members attacked several Anti-Racists outside a show at Mojo 13 (bar name later changed) in Delaware.
In January 2007, KSS members Kenneth Hoover and Charles Marovskis were arrested for beating two homeless men to death in Tampa, Florida in 1998. Hoover pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and racketeering. Charles Marovskis, of West Pittston, Pennsylvania, but originally from Tampa, Florida, pleaded guilty to two federal charges of second-degree murder.
In October, 2007, KSS members attacked Anti-Fascists down the street from a Floorpunch Show at first Unitarian Church in Philly, injuring 3 before fleeing.
On September 7, 2008, Philadelphia police officers arrested KSS member Andrew Boyle at a Philadelphia bar for being in possession of a knife. At the time of his arrest, Boyle was out on bail, awaiting trial on another matter. Boyle, along with co-defendants and fellow KSS members Carney and Doug Caffarella, and Atlantic City Skinhead Vincent DeFelice, were charged with assault and conspiracy in the alleged attack of another skinhead outside a Philadelphia bar in 2007.
In May 2014, KSS associate Vincent Pellegrino, brother of KSS member Nunzio Pellegrino, sexually assaulted a woman and stole her car, crashing it into a wall while being persued by police. Pellegrino died at the scene.
In October 2017 following their disrupted attempt to rally in Philly’s boathouse row, 10 KSS members attacked 2 Anti-Fascists in FDR park, injuring them both before aborting their party and fleeing the scene. KSS went on to celebrate the event with their event t-shirt.
In July 2018, 6 members of KSS were charged for attacking a Black man at a bar in Avalon, PA. According to the victim, KU members told him they were going to exterminate Black People “one by one” and called him the N-Word. They also injured an employee who tried to intervene. Others were involved, but the 6 charged were Natasha Dawn Bowers, 33, of Roaring Spring; Terrence Raymon Stockey, 40, of Beaver; Jeremy L. Ingram, 35, of Hollidaysburg; Travis Lee Cornell, 43, of Marianna; Crystal Lynn Shields, 23, of Tarentum; and James Edward Kryl, 45, of Pittsburgh’s North Side.
Just a few weeks ago, KSS associate and KU member Christopher Croumbley attacked an Anti-Racist outside the chameleon club in Lancaster for wearing clothing identifying themselves as Anti-Fascist.
It is worth considering that there is a pattern of high profile violent incidents, (which we assume to occur at times when non-reported acts of violence are at a peak) occurring at times when Keystone United’s “respectable white advocacy” is also more active. After the departure of a major organizer in the late 2000’s, Keystone United went relatively dormant for a few years and so did reports of violent attacks by it’s members. This flies in the face of the claim that allowing nazis in the public space for debate will redirect their energies and minimize violent assaults and murders. As nice as it would be to just let them “talk it out of their system,” when nazis and Fascists feel legitimized in the public sphere, they are emboldened, and attacks increase.
In addition to outward violence and their attempts to gain state power to enact large scale violence, KSS/KU is involved in fostering a Neo-nazi subculture in Pennsylvania that is larger than the group itself. They have organized Neo-nazi music festivals, usually in conjunction with Label 56, run by Rick Haught of Maryland Skinheads, including the “Uprise Festival,” which ran for several years, and shows by The Blue Eyed Devils, Aggravated Assault, and other popular Neo-nazi bands. They are hosting another Blue Eyed Devils show somewhere in PA on September 15th. The Blue Eyed Devils’ song titles include:
Bomb the Cities
Beating and Kicking
Hate Filled Mind
We Will Fight
Final Solution
Holocaust 2000
White Violence
Which feature lyrics such as :
During German nights and days
Adolf Eichman would lead the way
For the cause of White salvation
Victory, for our race and nation
The plan has started, no turning back
From the entire world, you’re under attack
A New Worlds Order for the Aryan man
Regain control of the European lands
Too many problems, too many lies
Too much of what you despise
Implement the only plan
Eradicate the so-called chosen man
The final solution!
White revolution!
This is a group with 2 Pennsylvania GOP politicians as members, promoting the show on their blog, alongside long articles claiming to be “white advocates” who “are like the NAACP for white people.” Who do these nazis think they are fooling… you?!
KSS makes it policy to show up at European heritage celebrations, St. Patrick’s day parades, and similar events. They do this both to recruit, and to normalize their presence in those spaces, making it harder to dislodge them later.
Each forthcoming article will come with a call to do some small action to make that KSS member’s life as a nazi a little bit harder. When it’s hard to be a nazi, some of them find a reason to quit. Others can’t do it as well as they had been. It creates divisions. Victories make them grow, defeats make them shrink.
Take the time to call their employer and demand they be fired. KSS has largely survived based on the ability for their members to travel around the state to swell numbers as needed. Gas is expensive. If the call is to help us get more info, ask your friend who is good at research but isn’t necessarily plugged into this world. If we mention that they hang out in certain places or areas, and you feel like you can do it safely, make up some flyers and post them around so that they have no anonymity. Someone should not be able to attack someone for their race on Saturday, then walk their dog to the park Sunday with no repercussions. We may feel better being ignorant of the nazi down the street, but it doesn’t actually make as any safer. Quite the opposite.
So remember to check back on the site every day. We are striving to put out each article first thing each morning, but it may be later some days. While standing our ground, defending ourselves, and physically shutting down Fascists in the street is an indispensable and crucial part of this work, the next 30 days is about showcasing how much we can do to disrupt neo-nazi organizing using research and communication.
We want to claim responsibility for the following actions:
-Slashing 16 tires on 8 Comcast trucks.
-Sabotaging 6 card readers of Wells Fargo, Citizens Bank, and Bank of America.
-Slashing 2 tires on a prison guard’s personal car.
These actions were done over the course of about a week in solidarity with the national prison strike and international week of solidarity with anarchist prisoners.
We chose these targets because they profit off of people being locked up and we wanted to strike those who directly or indirectly hold the prisons together.
-Comcast has a contract with ICE.
-Wells Fargo has a contract with ICE and also invests in prisons.
-Bank of America profits off of prison labor.
-We don’t know what’s up with Citizens Bank but fuck them too.
-Attacking a prison guard’s car needs no explanation.
A few notes on our methods:
-For the ATMs we used the tried and true method of super glue and half sized ATM cards or their cardboard equivalent.
-For the tires at first we tried using ball bearings in the valves but found it to be too loud, too slow, and too difficult to do with gloves on. Luckily we had a awl on hand that we had been meaning to try and were ecstatic to discover how quiet, discreet, and easy it was to puncture tires with. After we realized this we couldn’t stop noticing the vehicles of our enemies and went on a modest rampage with the awl. (An awl is like an oversized needle attached to a wooden handle used to pierce thick tough surfaces and they can be found at most arts and craft stores.)
We were able to make these actions happen by honing our observational skills, paying attention to our surroundings, and spontaneously making moves quickly when the opportunities arose.
We feel strongly that having confidence makes an attack easier but dressing like criminals made us feel insecure in that we were drawing too much attention to ourselves. Because of this we decided to get creative with our disguises. As much as we love the uniform* we felt too hot and too suspicious looking to justify wearing it for these types of actions, so we tried out some different styles.
Some of the ways we did this were by simply wearing more color, experimenting with alternatives to long sleeves and pants, and dressing to fit unassuming roles, for example: sporty, going out, stumbling to the store in pajamas etc etc.
Besides that we made sure that gloves and masks were still easy to take on and off. We think different disguises can be interesting and fun, and we want to continue to experiment and expand on theses tactics.
Reflections
Just as much as anyone else, we’re tired, our bodies hurt, and we sometimes find ourselves slipping into the abyss of self care and prioritizing survival over life. But for this prison strike we wanted to challenge ourselves, to ensure that the prisoners were not alone in their struggle, in their fear and in their discomfort. Despite challenging circumstances we felt it was important to deal with them and not back away because of them. Although we are in no rush to die or find ourselves in a cell we do feel the need to prioritize struggle over comfort. This priority is not from a place of duty or sacrifice but stems from our personal desires. It has been interesting to see how much we can push ourselves. Acting in solidarity and struggle is a constant choice we must make in every moment of everyday. Solidarity is more than something we save for a day on our calendars. It needs to be more than empty words. To us it is a personal choice to not shrink away from discomfort and to make the struggles of others a part of our own path, to face the challenge and upon recognizing how steep and heavy it is, deciding to walk toward it anyway.
Opportunities surround us at all times. Why is there always the need to wait for the next demo? We really appreciate all the different styles of action surrounding the strike, however, we still want to push against the trend that demos are the be-all-end-all, and that they are enough. For us the quality of an action is not dependent on the number of participants or the attention it gets from the media. Plus autonomous attack forces us to face our own individual creativity and initiative. If no one were around to organize with what would you find yourself doing? Would you engage in struggle?
Solidarity with Philly rebels recently brutalized and arrested by cowards
Solidarity with prisoners on lockdown and all those on strike
Fuck money
Fuck technology
Fuck 12
Fuck prisons
For the spread of revolt and sabotage
Toward the destruction of all restrictive realities
*Black gloves, black pants, black hoodie, black mask, black shoes.
Submission
Kickin’ off the nationwide prison strike with a banner drop in solidarity with prison rebels. The banner reads “NO BORDERS NO PRISONS! DESTROY ‘EM ALL!!! (circle A)”
Any act of resistance no matter how small, no matter the outcome, is significant. Even the smallest rebellion beats resigning to a life subjugation.
This site is meant to be a clearing space for writing, analysis, propaganda, pamphlets, photo essays and whatever else movement ephemera emerges from the chaos of Occupy ICE Philadelphia. Please submit any and all such materials here. We will be working over the next few days to organize, collect, and bring together materials already produced, as well as spruce up this site. But for now, it’s a living document and a work in progress.
What follows is a group statement from the OccupyICE encampment, currently occupying space in front of Arch St Methodist Church. This statement does not reflect the view of everyone at the encampment, however it is based on the general line of unity within the camp, arrived at through days of conversation and created through a cooperative writing and editing process.
We are writing to the coalition of organizations that inaugurated the OccupyICEPHL encampment at 8th and Cherry on July 2nd. We recognize the work and resources deployed to initiate that encampment and hold it for three days in the face of direct confrontation with the Philadelphia Police Department. There was also a great deal of political and press work done by the coalition in that time and over the following weeks and we are sure there were a lot of interventions behind the scenes to sustain the City Hall encampment to #EndPARS that we are ignorant of. We are grateful for this work and it is undeniable that we would not have gotten this far without it.
A lot has happened and many waves of organizers have passed through OccupyICE since those first few days. OccupyICE members who remain on the ground today have had very limited contact and few direct relationships with the coalition in that time, and there are real questions about who the coalition is and what its relationship to OccupyICE as an umbrella organizing body is given that distance. These questions have unsurprisingly also dominated discussions within the coalition meetings. Similarly, many difficult and problematic class dynamics have come up between coalition members who have largely decamped, organizers who have remained engaged with and close to OccupyICE but have access to housing and electronic communication with other organizers and access to other resources, and the many homeless and impoverished comrades living at the camp.
It may be confusing to some in the coalition what happened between the 2nd and 3rd encampment and why many in OccupyICE chose to support the continuation of the camp in a new location. We could spend a lot of time explaining the diverse political motives behind the move, but to put it most simply, at the time of the PARS victory, almost the entire camp of 30+ people were unhoused and had been self-managing camp for almost two weeks with bare bones logistical support, while participating and initiating a campaign of escalating actions during the final week of the campaign. In that time the comrades that joined and became the core of OccupyICE, and who ultimately pushed the PARS campaign over the finish line, rapidly developed a community, political consciousness, intitiative, strategy and leadership. In the final days of the city hall encampment, very few of the comrades on the ground were willing to stop the occupation and give up their organizational base. Additionally, members of OccupyICE who are unhoused had no option to “go home,” or even to vanish from the public sphere and enjoy the relative safety and anonymity that most residents of large cities can enjoy. These comrades are on the streets and are now known by the police to have participated in forceful and militant demonstrations for immigrant rights, in a very real sense, these comrades have committed to the struggle and there is no turning back for them as long as the continue living on the streets of Philadelphia.
The 3rd encampment has survived less than a week, and comrades are currently literally sleeping on the sidewalk, in the rain with no shelter and a very limited supply and support base. Without committed support from other organisations, Occupy ICE will not be able to set up a safe, clean and stable encampment — it should be considered that the more the coalition is stalled on a way forward, and the further it drifts from its street presence, the more real damage is done to the bodies and mental health of real comrades who have maintained that street presence despite feeling forgotten about, and even at times disrespected.
In fact, what some of you should find most startling is that these comrades are still committed to the fight. We are already mobilized around the Shut Down Berks and Abolish ICE campaigns and desire to continue waging that fight. Homeless organizers have also articulated and begun developing a campaign against Stop-and-Frisk and have many ideas around pushing politically on housing and other issues effecting the homeless. The camp is politically conscious, decidedly working-class and proletarian, multi-racial, multi-gendered and intergenerational.
Politically, we feel the camp has a great deal to offer any political alliance. We have demonstrated the willingness and skills necessary to occupy indefinitely with minimal material support. We have demonstrated the ability to sucessfully initiate militant demonstrations and disruptions with very little advanced planning or resources. We have demonstrated a great deal of tenacity, fearlessness, creativity and independence of action. We think the camp, in making strikes against the power of ICE and the PPD, and in its ability to accomodate a large diversity of tactics, is an invaluable base of operations for an ongoing street movement. We have persevered through the resourcefulness and initiative, at a small-group level, of small autonomous groups of highly-skilled and creative individuals taking whatever action seems politically or logistically best-suited to a given situation. What we have left over from losing our numbers, two homes, most of our shit and a lot of outside support has in large part been held together by these individuals, whose work in Occupy ICE has been a radicalising and motivating experience for everybody on the ground here, themselves included. In fact, far from needing political education or organisation by the coalition, we believe that any given coalition member could become a more capable, self-sustaining, initiative-oriented and radical organising force by learning from and working with these comrades at the street level. We have.
Organizers and cadre coming into prolonged contact with the encampment will have their class politics and analysis challenged and sharpened, should they be willing to listen and learn from comrades who have been actually living on the bottom, in the front lines of late capitalism. All of us have learned and grown tremendously, have been inspired, challenged, frequently uncomfortable, and (we hope) permanently changed by the experience. We have also demonstrated a strong capacity for doing street level organizing and outreach. During the last week of the OccupyICE city hall encampment, we demonstrated the ability to serve as a militant ally/umbrella for other left organizations, as we linked our demonstrations with ADAPT, MOVE, REAL Justice and the struggle for Puerto Rican independence. In that time we also distributed untold thousands of zines and fliers in direct street level outreach.
We understand that personal conflicts exist regarding drugs and alcohol use on site, and that for many open conflict can be disturbing, even triggering. We obviously support anyone in recovery from substance or mental health troubles that were stirred up by the camp. Perhaps this kind of support work is something the coalition, with its experienced organizers and its ties to non-profits, is perfectly positioned to provide and offer. But we do not believe that this is the only issue keeping people from the camp, nor do we believe it is a major political divide. We want to meet the coalition where it’s at, and interface with it as comrades.
However — this is not an offer to perform work narrowly in line with the strategy of organisations that are fully disengaged from the camp. The camp’s leadership has a level of political-strategic finesse that deserves to be taken seriously. The coalition, meanwhile, has not proven to be the most efficient deployment of the deep levels of creativity, power, organizational experience and revolutionary fire represented by its members. Meetings have seemingly become conflictual and demobilizing: after the last meeting, one of the central organizers in the coalition resigned in disgust and frustration, while the critiques that caused them to do so were treated as bad-faith “wrecking” behavior. This level of tension and burnout is not a desirable result from anyone’s perspective: we also think it’s unnecessary.
From the perspective of those of us still on the ground, there needs to be a renewed strategy about acheiving the remaining goals of the coalition (Shut Down Berks / Abolish ICE / making sure PARS expires / Ending Stop and Frisk). To date we have heard no proposals that includes a role for the militant core of the occupation. There seem to be limited opportunities to re-establish an occupation or blockade targeting Berks in Philadelphia and though we have had serious internal conversations about reestablishing the blockade or otherwise interfering with ICE, we have not heard it proposed from any other organized body. We are worried that the coalition is claiming OccupyICE in name only at this point and would rather continue the campaigns in a diminished and less intensive manner. We think that is an error, but by refusing to admit that such a diminishing is what the coalition wants, the coalition doubles down on this error by creating grounds for conflict, fragility and frustration in the gap between stated desires and actual actions. We believe that honesty and clarity of purpose, no matter what decision they lead to, from the total abolition of the coalition and refocusing on organizations’ autonomus projects to a commitment to totally reengaging with and rebuildling the camp, or anything in between, will greatly reduce tension, sectarian conflict and burn out among coalition organizers.
We are proposing moving forward with a strategy that centers occupation among other tactics around our political objectives, to both advance the campaigns as well as providing political cover and support for the autonomous working-class organizing coming out of the homeless community. If we do not re-establish an encampment that has the political backing of established organizations in Philadelphia we will lose all the political organization and momentum that we have built and the comrades who have put their lives on the line, believing in our cause, will be left to fend for themeselves and face the violence of the state, alone. Obviously we don’t feel that is a principled political or ethical option, but we also don’t feel it is a strategic one.
We ask that the OccupyICE coalition will seriously consider our proposal and do us the courtesy of giving us a straightforward response, in a reasonable timeframe, about its level of commitment to these campaigns, so that we may make our own decisions moving forward. Please remember that as these conversations wind their way through various organizations and commmittees, we are actually living on the street and our logistical support, our strength, our ability to organize and to mobilize is deteriorating with each passing day without sustained support from the activist community. We also want to raise the question to the broader coalition of whether or not it is justified to continue claiming the mantle of OccupyICE if occupation is not being discussed as a tactic for acheiving our campaign goals.
We will have to make our own moves soon, and we hope that we can move together.
In the heat of struggle—and with the demands of security and safety—it’s very common that we don’t stop and record the actions, marches and political events occurring around us. Social movement historians often interview activists years after the fact, after nostalgia, popular sentiment and sectarian interpretations of the movement have hardened. As a result, we rarely get day by day accounts of movements until they can be reconstructed through official records, and thus have difficulty assessing the ebb and flow of tactics, escalations and direct actions that shape campaigns as they are ongoing.
It is with that in mind that we present this timeline of actions in and around OccupyICE Philadelphia that led to a major victory: the end of official data-sharing between ICE and the Philadelphia Police Department.
Timeline
July 2nd: After weeks of planning, a coalition of radical groups in Philadelphia hold a rally outside City Hall. Hundreds show up, and march to ICE offices at 8th and Cherry, where an occupation is spontaneously set up. At first the streets around the building are barricaded, but organizers negotiate with police to take down barricades and remain on the sidewalk, blocking the doors and driveways. This moment, in which activists in high-visibility vests are seen taking down the barricades at police demand—and an altercation between organizers afterwards—will be the source of ongoing tensions in the activist scenes of Philadelphia. Nevertheless, the space is bravely held and an occupation with tents and umbrellas is set up blocking ICE.
July 3rd: Police attack the encampment, arresting 29 protestors who link arms and stay in formation as they are arrested. PPD clears the main driveway and takes down all the structures. In defiance, protestors immediately rebuild, setting up umbrellas, tents and chairs in the intersection of 8th and Cherry Street. Jail support mobilizes. All arrested are released with citations.
July 4th:A vacation atmosphere pervades in camp as numbers swell with people off for the fourth. A small contingent marches down to Market Street to interrupt a July 4th parade. A banner reading “No one is illegal. Abolish ICE” is dropped from between two trees over 8th street. A GA is held.
July 5th: At around 12:00 PM, a hundred PPD attack and clear the rest of the camp, beating everyone, destroying materials, and arresting seven. A press conference arranged by the coalition for later that afternoon means there is a tremendous amount of local coverage of the attack. A GA held at 7PM draws more than 150 people, but core coalition organizers, burnt out from the last few days, announce their intention to decamp, and the GA ends in inaction. Meanwhile, however, a small contingent of protestors have set up a new encampment at City Hall to put pressure on the city to meet the movement’s first demand: end PARS, the data sharing agreement between PPD and ICE. A pamphlet critiquing camp organizers, “An Anarchist Report Back and Some Embedded Critiques of #OccupyICE Philadelphia”, is published.
July 6th: Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney¬who campaigned on anti-Trump rhetoric and making Philadelphia a sanctuary city, takes a terrible beating in the press—thanks in large part to the publicity work of the coalition—for the attack on ICE protestors. This political pressure forces him to play nice, and he says publicly that the new encampment can stay. Where the first camp was surrounded at all times by police, PPD takes a hands off approach to the City Hall encampment.
July 7th: The new encampment begins building out infrastructure. Banners and tarps go up. Posters are wheatpasted around downtown. A queer dance party is held at camp, pirating power from city hall.
July 8th: A newlywed immigrant couple comes down to camp in their wedding attire to demand Kenney end PARS and express solidarity and support. A number of unhoused folks who live in and around city hall join the movement and begin to call the camp home.
July 9th:Kenney meets with campers and immigrant rights activists, in particular organizers from Juntos, who have been waging the fight against PARS for almost a decade and who set the entire stage for this struggle, to discuss demands. The meeting is inconclusive, but rumors start to circulate that PARS’ days are numbered. A camp kitchen and first aid tent are established to help organize donations and activity.
July 10th: A mass meeting at the Friends center sees more than a hundred folks debating the way forward. At that meeting a mass march is called for August 4th. Twice daily General Assemblies are established at the camp.
July 11th: Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner calls for an end for ICE access to PARS, increasing the political pressure. A workshop at anarchist bookshop The Wooden Shoe, led and attended by camp organizers of different ideological stripes, calls for unity of action between socialist, communist and anarchist communities. Nevertheless, sectarian tension continues unabated within the activist scene. Meanwhile, tension increases between middle-class and unhoused organizers, as facts of life on the streets—fighting, drug use, serious mental illness—have to be dealt with at camp.
July 13th: City Council is called in for a closed special session to be briefed by the city’s legal team on PARS. Confidence grows inside camp and in the larger activist community that PARS will soon come to an end. Camp participates in #OneMillionFlames, a nationwide solidarity vigil for detained and deported families.
July 14th: DHS Director Kirstjen Nielsen gives a speech at the Loews Hotel and is heckled by occupiers. Protestors demonstrate and pass out literature outside the event.
July 15th: The Shut Down Berks coalition holds a vigil outside the Berks Detention Center. Around 250 people attend. Eleven protestors are arrested sitting in, blocking the road into the center.
July 16th: Over the weekend the makeup of the camp has decidedly swung towards unhoused activists. Many people who have been active in the first two weeks are burnt out and consider the camp too difficult to organize in. Simultaneously, however, the unhoused activists have gotten to know each other and have gotten organized, and the amount of drama and chaos at the camp begins to drop dramatically.
July 17th: Pressure continues to ramp on Kenney in the local press. Activists bring a screen printer to camp and make dozens of “Mayor Kenney end PARS” t-shirts. Friendly Fire Collective publishes “Beyond Occupation.” The West Philly Orchestra comes to camp and gives a concert.
July 18th: The first of a number of “Noise Demos” occurs outside ICE offices during rush hour, as 25 or so activists shut down 8th and Cherry for a few hours and loudly disrupt ICE’s morning operations. The Kenney administration once again meets with ICE. The mayor publicly states that the reason for the meetings is the suspicion that ICE has been violating the PARS contract—a fact activists and immigrants have known for years, but which provides political cover for ending the contract.
July 20th:Another noise demo during rush hour again disrupts ICE operations. A very large tarp is put up covering the entirety of the encampment, and the encampment begins to take its more permanent shape as one giant tent. This is fortunate timing, as it rains incredibly heavily the next three days.
July 22nd: Mike Africa delivers food to camp grown in the MOVE garden, and pledges the support of the MOVE organization. Another noise demo marches from camp to ICE offices and again disrupts their morning.
July 24th: In an unplanned, spontaneous demonstration, camp residents shut down the city hall traffic circle for two hours. Comrades chant for Nia Wilson, murdered in a racist attack in Oakland. The camp holds an open mic night.
July 25th: Escalation continues at the camp, as demonstrators attempt to deliver a letter to the mayor at 11:30. In an unforced error, the city shuts down the public offices, creating scenes of chaos in City Hall as security attacks protestors. Demonstrators come out and shut down the traffic circle with comrades who remained in the camp. In the afternoon, campers once again shut down the traffic circle. In the evening, Puerto Rican Independentistas come down to camp, and in solidarity the camp shuts down the traffic circle for the third time that day, marching under the slogan: “Free Puerto Rico / End PARS.”
July 26th: ADAPT activists lock down city hall demanding housing for disabled people in Philadelphia. They are supported by a chain of folks from camp, who keep attention on their protest and escort them out of city hall. The camp again shuts down the traffic circle during rush hour. Pam Africa, who has been scheduled to give a talk, gives her speech through a megaphone at the police line, as occupiers hold an impromptu teach-in in the traffic circle.
July 27th: Mayor Kenney announces that the city will let PARS expire! The camp shuts down the traffic circle yet again in a victory lap. Coalition organizers come to camp to hold a press conference celebrating the victory. Kenney announces that the camp, with its extensive infrastructure and materials, will be evicted by 2PM the next day. A previously called mass meeting at William Way spends two and a half hours debating procedure, and many activists who attended leave the meeting and go home rather than return to camp. Celebrations are muted as eviction looms. Plans to decamp are debated but not solidified.
July 28th: In an amazing feat of organization, the camp—three weeks of structures, donations, materials and personal possessions—is struck and removed by the 2PM deadline. A third camp is established next to Municipal Services Plaza, with a new demand: end Stop and Frisk. Comrades point out that stop and frisk punishes the poor and non-white communities in much the same way PARS attacks immigrants: using minor infractions and racial profiling to criminalize entire communities. Camp residents form the new organization Homeless Against Stop and Frisk.
July 29th: The new camp expands with a big tarp, and is quickly almost as solid and well-established physically as the previous one. However, exhaustion from weeks of escalation coupled with confusion around the move leads to lower numbers. The space is largely dominated by organizers from Homeless Against Stop and Frisk. A core organizer is interviewed on the It’s Going Down Podcast.
July 30th: Camp builds out a kitchen. The Department of Homeless Services issues a pro-forma eviction notice to the new camp-it even has the wrong date on it-as they claim is not a protest but a non-political homeless camp. Camp makes banners and signs, and discusses what to do.
July 31st: Declaring a “Service Day”, police destroy, “clean,” and evict the new encampment, arresting four. Campers shut down traffic and march on Broad street. Occupiers move across the street and reestablish camp in front of the Arch St United Methodist Church, but no structures are allowed. A direct action takes place at Comcast headquarters against their collaboration with ICE, as part of a national day of action called by Cosecha. Seven are arrested. A vigil is held at the DAs office for Michael White, a Black caviar worker who stabbed and killed a white developer in self-defense.
August 1st: A contentious mass meeting sees frustrations aired between campers and coalition members. A clear divide is forming in the movement between those who support continued occupation and activists who would rather focus on other efforts.
August 2nd: Philly REAL Justice rally to take down the Rizzo statue turns into an impromptu march to end stop and frisk, which takes the streets around city hall. Despite these actions, without shelter, and with collapsing support from the activist community, numbers at camp begin to dwindle.
August 3rd: Another rowdy march of about twenty activists takes the streets, shutting down traffic and intersections for almost two hours to end stop and frisk. Philadelphia Weekly publishes “Redemption, Camaraderie, Drugs and Fights Inside Occupy City Hall.” A “No More PARS” victory party is held in West Philadelphia, however, invitations only go out via Facebook and no transportation is provided from camp.
August 4th: The Mass March for a Sanctuary City—called three weeks previously—sees more than 150 people take the streets through downtown Philadelphia, including blocking the ICE building, and ends with a victory rally at City Hall. Organizers talk about the movement and what the future holds. A banner drop over the highway reads “End Stop & Frisk”
August 6th: An attempted re-occupation of the ICE building fails as masked protestors build barricades but lack the numbers to hold off police. A noise demo shuts down traffic at ICE headquarters for about an hour. Reports that fascists Charlie Kirk and Candance Owens are eating breakfast in center city see the demo turn and march down, disrupting their breakfast and giving Kirk an ice water bath that makes national news. The Philadelphia Partisan publishes “We Need People Here To Be Fighting”
August 7th: Weekly REAL Justice rally against the Rizzo statue again turns into an end stop and frisk march, as protestors take the streets for an hour.
August 9th: A mass meeting establishes a weekly Sunday GA at the camp to continue strategizing for next steps. The camp releases “Statement from the Camp to the Coalition.”
August 11th: The city’s “Philly Free Streets” program sees Broad Street, site of the current encampment, turned into a pedestrian zone for the morning. Mayor Kenney, inaugurating the event with a power walk, is heckled by activists from Homeless Against Stop and Frisk, who chase him with a megaphone.
August 12th: Shut Down Berks Coalition holds another vigil outside the facility. Homeless Against Stop and Frisk sends campers in support and solidarity.
Conclusion
That brings us to today. In many ways the camp feels isolated and weak, but the fact that we’re still out here at all is a major achievement. It’s not yet clear how (or whether) the energy captured and organized in the last month in this city will turn into a broader campaign against ICE, or whether the turn toward police abolition and homeless advocacy work initiated by Homeless Against Stop and Frisk will prove decisive.
Whatever the future holds, we have won something significant here in Philadelphia with the end of PARS, and perhaps more importantly we have found each other in the streets. Strong and serious bonds have formed between a wide array of activists, organizers and troublemakers. We hope this account of the process proves useful to proliferating such struggles around the world.
With love, rage and solidarity
-Philly Anarchy Jawn
