Movement Law Lab
@movementlawlab.bsky.social
Bringing the power of lawyers to social movements.
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What You Need to Know if the National Guard Is Deployed to Your State by the Trump Regime — Movement Law Lab
Learn your rights when the National Guard is deployed to your city. This guide explains the law, including the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act, and provides critical information on…
www.movementlawlab.org
Armed federal agents in Chicago. National Guard deployments in Portland and Memphis. These are not public safety measures, they are intimidation tactics.
Lawyers & communities, you need to know your rights. Here’s a resource on how you can prepare: www.movementlawlab.org/nationalguard
Lawyers & communities, you need to know your rights. Here’s a resource on how you can prepare: www.movementlawlab.org/nationalguard
Reposted by Movement Law Lab
Anyone thinking that "Border Czar" Tom Homan is going to tone down the rhetoric in Minnesota doesn't know Homan. He spent all of the Biden years turning up the invasion and great replacement rhetoric and traveling from city to city spreading 2020 election conspiracies.
Border911: The Misinformation Network Profiting Off the False ‘Invasion’ Narrative
Meet the former intelligence officers and ex-feds spreading propaganda and laying the groundwork for an election challenge on behalf of Trump.
www.theborderchronicle.com
January 29, 2026 at 9:08 PM
Anyone thinking that "Border Czar" Tom Homan is going to tone down the rhetoric in Minnesota doesn't know Homan. He spent all of the Biden years turning up the invasion and great replacement rhetoric and traveling from city to city spreading 2020 election conspiracies.
Reposted by Movement Law Lab
Deploying troops in our communities threatens our civil rights and safety.
Tell your Senators to support the Military in Law Enforcement Accountability Act at aclu.org/troops-not_police
Tell your Senators to support the Military in Law Enforcement Accountability Act at aclu.org/troops-not_police
January 28, 2026 at 7:24 PM
Deploying troops in our communities threatens our civil rights and safety.
Tell your Senators to support the Military in Law Enforcement Accountability Act at aclu.org/troops-not_police
Tell your Senators to support the Military in Law Enforcement Accountability Act at aclu.org/troops-not_police
“Refusing to cooperate with systems that harm people requires simultaneously building alternative systems that care for people.”
Scott Nakagawa draws parallels between drug policy reform movement & the authoritarian moment we’re in now. antiauthoritarianplaybook.substack.com/p/refusal-an...
Scott Nakagawa draws parallels between drug policy reform movement & the authoritarian moment we’re in now. antiauthoritarianplaybook.substack.com/p/refusal-an...
Refusal and Care
Why Non-Cooperation Requires Building Alternatives
antiauthoritarianplaybook.substack.com
January 28, 2026 at 4:04 PM
“Refusing to cooperate with systems that harm people requires simultaneously building alternative systems that care for people.”
Scott Nakagawa draws parallels between drug policy reform movement & the authoritarian moment we’re in now. antiauthoritarianplaybook.substack.com/p/refusal-an...
Scott Nakagawa draws parallels between drug policy reform movement & the authoritarian moment we’re in now. antiauthoritarianplaybook.substack.com/p/refusal-an...
Reposted by Movement Law Lab
📽️NEW: Trump is accelerating an authoritarian playbook at a speed never seen before.
@ruthbenghiat.bsky.social explains how expansionism, paramilitary policing, election sabotage and propaganda mirror past fascist regimes, and why this moment is uniquely dangerous👇
https://bit.ly/4rdtJWf
@ruthbenghiat.bsky.social explains how expansionism, paramilitary policing, election sabotage and propaganda mirror past fascist regimes, and why this moment is uniquely dangerous👇
https://bit.ly/4rdtJWf
www.youtube.com
bit.ly
January 28, 2026 at 12:02 AM
📽️NEW: Trump is accelerating an authoritarian playbook at a speed never seen before.
@ruthbenghiat.bsky.social explains how expansionism, paramilitary policing, election sabotage and propaganda mirror past fascist regimes, and why this moment is uniquely dangerous👇
https://bit.ly/4rdtJWf
@ruthbenghiat.bsky.social explains how expansionism, paramilitary policing, election sabotage and propaganda mirror past fascist regimes, and why this moment is uniquely dangerous👇
https://bit.ly/4rdtJWf
Reposted by Movement Law Lab
Please examine what body cams *didn’t do* to stop police violence over the last decade plus since they were initially touted as a solution and understand that some of you are now rallying behind a false solution that will be a tool of criminalization more often than anything else.
January 27, 2026 at 8:18 PM
Please examine what body cams *didn’t do* to stop police violence over the last decade plus since they were initially touted as a solution and understand that some of you are now rallying behind a false solution that will be a tool of criminalization more often than anything else.
Reposted by Movement Law Lab
Reminder that, in recent days, children have rallied and protested for their freedom inside an ICE detention center where water has been described as "putrid" and meals reportedly contain “bugs,” dirt, and debris. This is where the kidnapped 5-year-old Liam Ramos is being held.
Protest breaks out at Dilley immigration detention facility holding 5-year-old Liam Ramos
A protest broke out Saturday at the ICE-run South Texas family detention complex in Dilley, where five-year-old Liam Ramos is being detained.
www.tpr.org
January 27, 2026 at 5:55 PM
Reminder that, in recent days, children have rallied and protested for their freedom inside an ICE detention center where water has been described as "putrid" and meals reportedly contain “bugs,” dirt, and debris. This is where the kidnapped 5-year-old Liam Ramos is being held.
"There is no doubt that, as MAGA’s authoritarianism and military invasions accelerate, we need a strategy to push back."
znetwork.org/znetarticle/...
znetwork.org/znetarticle/...
Social Strikes: Can General Strikes, Mass Strikes, and People Power Uprisings Provide a Last Defense Against MAGA Tyranny?
Jeremy Brecher is a co-founder and senior strategic advisor for the Labor Network forSustainability. He is the author of more than fifteen books on labor
znetwork.org
January 27, 2026 at 3:03 PM
"There is no doubt that, as MAGA’s authoritarianism and military invasions accelerate, we need a strategy to push back."
znetwork.org/znetarticle/...
znetwork.org/znetarticle/...
"As authoritarian politics harden in the United States, familiar channels of resistance are proving dangerously inadequate. "
wagingnonviolence.org/2026/01/soci...
wagingnonviolence.org/2026/01/soci...
January 26, 2026 at 3:03 PM
"As authoritarian politics harden in the United States, familiar channels of resistance are proving dangerously inadequate. "
wagingnonviolence.org/2026/01/soci...
wagingnonviolence.org/2026/01/soci...
ICE is planning to spend $100 million on propaganda to recruit officers to carry out their deportation agenda. We’ve seen what they’re willing to do to people and their rights. Their efforts to get more people to join their terror campaigns must be interrupted.
www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...
www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...
ICE’s New-Age Propaganda
With its string of “wartime recruitment” ads, often featuring pop songs and familiar meme formats, the agency has weaponized social media against itself.
www.newyorker.com
January 26, 2026 at 2:04 PM
ICE is planning to spend $100 million on propaganda to recruit officers to carry out their deportation agenda. We’ve seen what they’re willing to do to people and their rights. Their efforts to get more people to join their terror campaigns must be interrupted.
www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...
www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...
Some of these young lawyers are saying both privately and openly that their leaders betrayed their firms’ principles with deals that could undermine a commitment to provide free legal work to public interest groups and causes at odds with the White House.
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/b...
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/b...
January 23, 2026 at 11:12 PM
Some of these young lawyers are saying both privately and openly that their leaders betrayed their firms’ principles with deals that could undermine a commitment to provide free legal work to public interest groups and causes at odds with the White House.
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/b...
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/b...
Whren v. United States is the case that lets cops—and ICE—turn minor traffic violations into a deportation dragnet. Lawyers need to defend the people being hunted, not the agency doing the hunting.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
The Court Case That Is Allowing ICE to Stop Just About Anyone It Wants
Whren v. United States needs to go.
www.theatlantic.com
January 23, 2026 at 2:02 PM
Whren v. United States is the case that lets cops—and ICE—turn minor traffic violations into a deportation dragnet. Lawyers need to defend the people being hunted, not the agency doing the hunting.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
In our latest Substack post, Natalie Harris reflects on her hometown of Minneapolis—a city once again on the front lines of resistance.
Minneapolis isn’t backing down, and neither can we.
open.substack.com/pub/movement...
Minneapolis isn’t backing down, and neither can we.
open.substack.com/pub/movement...
I grew up in Minneapolis. Here’s What I Know About How We Fight Back.
2020 laid the groundwork for community resistance in the Twin Cities.
open.substack.com
January 22, 2026 at 9:01 PM
In our latest Substack post, Natalie Harris reflects on her hometown of Minneapolis—a city once again on the front lines of resistance.
Minneapolis isn’t backing down, and neither can we.
open.substack.com/pub/movement...
Minneapolis isn’t backing down, and neither can we.
open.substack.com/pub/movement...
“Recent protests remind us of an obvious fact: young people are not “the future,” but political entities in the present. Governments need to hear not just the noise of protest, but the clarity of the demands: justice, dignity, representation and a future.”
January 22, 2026 at 6:02 PM
“Recent protests remind us of an obvious fact: young people are not “the future,” but political entities in the present. Governments need to hear not just the noise of protest, but the clarity of the demands: justice, dignity, representation and a future.”
From the 2020 uprisings to today’s federal occupation, the Twin Cities are showing the world what it looks like to defy authoritarianism through community care, mutual aid, and fierce solidarity. Minneapolis isn’t backing down, and neither can we.
I grew up in Minneapolis. Here’s What I Know About How We Fight Back.
2020 laid the groundwork for community resistance in the Twin Cities.
substack.com
January 22, 2026 at 2:26 PM
From the 2020 uprisings to today’s federal occupation, the Twin Cities are showing the world what it looks like to defy authoritarianism through community care, mutual aid, and fierce solidarity. Minneapolis isn’t backing down, and neither can we.
Masked agents are kicking in doors, snatching people from cars, pointing guns at anyone who dares to film. How will the lawyers show up to defend and work with movement?
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
This is what ICE descending on Minneapolis looks like
Photos show the terror and resistance taking over Minnesota's largest city.
www.motherjones.com
January 22, 2026 at 2:02 PM
Masked agents are kicking in doors, snatching people from cars, pointing guns at anyone who dares to film. How will the lawyers show up to defend and work with movement?
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Reposted by Movement Law Lab
PIVOTING FROM DEFENSE TO OFFENSE
Scott Nakagawa, antiauthoritarianplaybook.substack.com/p/pivoting-f...
Detailed strategy to take offense to end authoritarianism.
Goal: to build a democratic, equitable, joyful society that makes authoritarianism impossible.
open.substack.com/pub/antiauth...
Scott Nakagawa, antiauthoritarianplaybook.substack.com/p/pivoting-f...
Detailed strategy to take offense to end authoritarianism.
Goal: to build a democratic, equitable, joyful society that makes authoritarianism impossible.
open.substack.com/pub/antiauth...
Pivoting From Defense to Offense
The Strategic Shift
open.substack.com
July 30, 2025 at 5:10 PM
PIVOTING FROM DEFENSE TO OFFENSE
Scott Nakagawa, antiauthoritarianplaybook.substack.com/p/pivoting-f...
Detailed strategy to take offense to end authoritarianism.
Goal: to build a democratic, equitable, joyful society that makes authoritarianism impossible.
open.substack.com/pub/antiauth...
Scott Nakagawa, antiauthoritarianplaybook.substack.com/p/pivoting-f...
Detailed strategy to take offense to end authoritarianism.
Goal: to build a democratic, equitable, joyful society that makes authoritarianism impossible.
open.substack.com/pub/antiauth...
Reposted by Movement Law Lab
“The collective is what sets people free, not just knowledge.
No one is set free alone.
Truth must be tied to communities of hope that create the conditions for liberation.”
—Scott Nakagawa
open.substack.com/pub/antiauth...
No one is set free alone.
Truth must be tied to communities of hope that create the conditions for liberation.”
—Scott Nakagawa
open.substack.com/pub/antiauth...
Reinterpreting "Speak Truth to Power" in an Era of Authoritarianism and Post-Truth Politics
The Truth Alone Will Not Set Us Free
open.substack.com
February 21, 2025 at 4:20 PM
“The collective is what sets people free, not just knowledge.
No one is set free alone.
Truth must be tied to communities of hope that create the conditions for liberation.”
—Scott Nakagawa
open.substack.com/pub/antiauth...
No one is set free alone.
Truth must be tied to communities of hope that create the conditions for liberation.”
—Scott Nakagawa
open.substack.com/pub/antiauth...
ICE admitted in court it deported people it knew had won their cases. Continuing with business as usual is not an option for lawyers who believe in law. The legal community needs to draw a line and pick a side.
www.thenation.com/article/acti...
www.thenation.com/article/acti...
Want to Stop ICE? Go After Its Corporate Collaborators.
ICE can’t function without help from the private sector. So we should force the private sector to stop helping.
www.thenation.com
January 21, 2026 at 2:01 PM
ICE admitted in court it deported people it knew had won their cases. Continuing with business as usual is not an option for lawyers who believe in law. The legal community needs to draw a line and pick a side.
www.thenation.com/article/acti...
www.thenation.com/article/acti...
"When nonviolent movements face severe repression, the resulting suffering of victims may arouse a sympathetic response among third parties, winning support for the movement and increasing opposition to the brutality of the opponent."
wagingnonviolence.org/2026/01/nonv...
wagingnonviolence.org/2026/01/nonv...
January 20, 2026 at 10:24 PM
"When nonviolent movements face severe repression, the resulting suffering of victims may arouse a sympathetic response among third parties, winning support for the movement and increasing opposition to the brutality of the opponent."
wagingnonviolence.org/2026/01/nonv...
wagingnonviolence.org/2026/01/nonv...
Reposted by Movement Law Lab
People are protesting across the United States today. They’re holding 400+ rallies & actions. They’re walking off their jobs to mark the one-year anniversary of Trump’s inauguration. #FreeAmerica #FreeAmericaWalkout. Latest episode of #StoriesOfResistance from @undertheshadow.bsky.social
Free America Walkout marks a year of resisting Trump
Donald Trump was sworn in to his second term one year ago today. He has unleashed an unprecedented attack on democracy, within the United States and abroad. But people have responded. This is episode ...
therealnews.com
January 20, 2026 at 7:15 PM
People are protesting across the United States today. They’re holding 400+ rallies & actions. They’re walking off their jobs to mark the one-year anniversary of Trump’s inauguration. #FreeAmerica #FreeAmericaWalkout. Latest episode of #StoriesOfResistance from @undertheshadow.bsky.social
When federal judges are side‑eyeing ICE violence, the rest of the legal profession should be running toward defiance. Lawyers need to defend organizers, not ICE.
chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...
chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...
Judge cites Minneapolis ICE shooting as she pauses dismissal of Chicago-area use-of-force lawsuit
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis on Thursday cited her obligation to protect the class governed by her preliminary injunction, telling lawyers she wants to do more research before closing the matter…
chicago.suntimes.com
January 20, 2026 at 6:00 PM
When federal judges are side‑eyeing ICE violence, the rest of the legal profession should be running toward defiance. Lawyers need to defend organizers, not ICE.
chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...
chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...
State supreme courts are a key testing ground for the authoritarian experiment & the pushback against it, here’s what on the docket:
State Court Oral Arguments to Watch for in January
Issues on the dockets include legislative responses to Missouri’s voter-approved reproductive rights amendment, Utah’s execution methods, and Idaho’s school-choice program.
statecourtreport.org
January 16, 2026 at 6:03 PM
State supreme courts are a key testing ground for the authoritarian experiment & the pushback against it, here’s what on the docket:
10 attorneys quit over the Trump administration's decision to not investigate the killing of Renee Good and instead, investigate her wife. This is what we need; for lawyers to refuse to be part of this authoritarian regime's agenda.
Federal prosecutors quit in protest over lack of investigation into ICE shooting
Six lawyers from US attorney’s office in Minnesota quit along with four leaders of DoJ’s civil rights division
www.theguardian.com
January 16, 2026 at 4:59 PM
10 attorneys quit over the Trump administration's decision to not investigate the killing of Renee Good and instead, investigate her wife. This is what we need; for lawyers to refuse to be part of this authoritarian regime's agenda.
Reposted by Movement Law Lab
Policy solutions to ICE are about defunding them, taking away their ability to arrest and detain and deport people, and about helping people, neighborhoods, cities who are vulnerable to any of those acts of violence to increase their ability to live without those acts of violence.
January 15, 2026 at 10:34 PM
Policy solutions to ICE are about defunding them, taking away their ability to arrest and detain and deport people, and about helping people, neighborhoods, cities who are vulnerable to any of those acts of violence to increase their ability to live without those acts of violence.
Reposted by Movement Law Lab
About this: This practice of churches providing groceries/supplies to immigrant families who are afraid to leave their homes out of fear of ICE is widespread, and widely reported.
What's different here is the *scale* of operations this one church is overseeing, and how public they are about it.
What's different here is the *scale* of operations this one church is overseeing, and how public they are about it.
They have quite an operation going.
www.mprnews.org/episode/2026...
www.mprnews.org/episode/2026...
Minneapolis church has delivered more than 12,000 boxes of groceries to families in hiding
DHH church has hundreds of volunteers packing and delivering groceries to families who have been too scared to leave their homes during the immigration operation.
www.mprnews.org
January 16, 2026 at 1:35 PM
About this: This practice of churches providing groceries/supplies to immigrant families who are afraid to leave their homes out of fear of ICE is widespread, and widely reported.
What's different here is the *scale* of operations this one church is overseeing, and how public they are about it.
What's different here is the *scale* of operations this one church is overseeing, and how public they are about it.