From coast to coast, groups of people are springing up to protect members of their communities as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents threaten them with violent enforcement.
In Portland, Oregon, community volunteers have delivered food boxes to migrant families scared to leave their homes. In Portland, Maine, nearly a thousand people turned out for a virtual American Civil Liberties Union “Know Your Rights” training event. And in Minneapolis and St. Paul, volunteers have formed networks to give warning with whistles and phone apps when ICE is prowling the streets.
As someone who for two decades has studied nonviolent movements in war zones, I see many parallels between these movements abroad and those that have been organized recently across the U.S. The communities I have studied – from Colombia to the Philippines to Syria – teach lessons about surviving in the midst of danger that Americans have been discovering instinctively over the past year.
These experiences show that protection of their neighbors is possible. Violence can bring feelings of fear, isolation and powerlessness, but unity can overcome fear, and nonviolence and discipline are key for denying the powerful pretexts for further escalation and harm.
But at the same time, the deaths of Americans Renée Good and Alex Pretti, who were part of a nonviolent movement and were killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis, make it clear that acting to protect neighbors requires courage, and prospects are not always certain.
Here are the core lessons I have learned from the people and the groups I have researched.
1. Organizing is the first step
Community organizing is the act of building social ties, setting decision-making procedures, sharing information and coordinating activities.
In Colombia, I found that it was the more organized communities with vibrant local councils that were better able to protect themselves by avoiding or opposing violence when caught between heavily armed insurgents, paramilitaries and state forces. These organizations provide reassurance to the more hesitant and encourage more people to join in.
America has a strong civic culture and history of organizing, dating back to the Civil Rights Movement and long before, and Minnesota is known for its strong social cohesion. It’s no wonder so many Minnesotans, as well as Chicagoans, Angelenos and other Americans have organized to aid their neighbors and press for justice.
Make no mistake, the act of organizing itself is powerful. I found that insights from the combatants of armed conflicts shed light on this. A former insurgent I interviewed in Colombia quoted to me an adage of Aristotle and Shakespeare: “A single swallow doesn’t make a summer” – meaning there’s safety in numbers.
A mass of people on its own can shift the calculus and behavior of those with weapons and deter them. It’s why there are now many visuals of ICE agents leaving the scene when outnumbered by community members.
2. Adopting nonviolent strategies
Organizing also enables communities to adopt nonviolent methods for accountability and protection without ratcheting up conflict.
These strategies are less political or partisan, since there is usually consensus around promoting safety, which makes it difficult for political figures to oppose. While recent polling on presidential approval and immigration policy still shows a partisan split, ICE is widely unpopular, and a large majority opposes its aggressive tactics.
Americans have taken up many of these nonviolent strategies. They have established early warning networks just as communities did in the Democratic Republic of Congo to guard against attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group.
Whether with whistles or WhatsApp, such networks of protectors are sharing information with each other to identify threats and come to each other’s aid.
3. Setting up safe zones
Communities in places such as the Philippines have also set up safe zones or “peace zones” to publicize their desire to keep violence away from their residents. This is akin to the declaration of “sanctuary cities” in the U.S. for the issue of immigration.
Communities may also apply different kinds of pressure on armed aggressors. While protest is the most visible approach, dialogue is also possible. Pressure can take the form of persuasion as well as shaming to make trigger-happy agents think twice about what they’re doing and use restraint.
In the U.S., protectors have shown great creativity when it comes to exerting pressure. Grandmas and priests are visible symbols who have influence through their moral and spiritual status. The use of humor and farce – such as protesters dressed in frog suits – can help to de-escalate tensions.
It may not always seem like it, but reputations and concerns about accountability matter, even to bullies. That’s why ICE agents don’t want to be seen enacting violence. Hence the face masks, the snatching of protesters’ phones and the misleading statements by officials about violent encounters.
4. Finding the facts
In the “fog of war,” the powerful may try to twist the facts and mislead and stigmatize communities and individuals to create pretexts for even greater uses of force.
In Colombia and Afghanistan, armed groups falsely accused individuals of being enemy collaborators. Communities addressed this by conducting their own investigations of those accused, after which community elders could vouch for them.
In the U.S., Americans are recording cellphone videos and collecting community evidence to counter official lies, such as accusations of domestic terrorism – and for future efforts to pursue accountability.
Standing up for others
Finally, what’s known as “accompaniment” is also important.
For example, international humanitarian staff and volunteers have gone to communities in places such as Colombia, Guatemala and South Sudan to let armed groups know that outsiders are watching them and acting as unarmed bodyguards for human rights defenders.
In the U.S., volunteers, citizens and religious leaders have used their less vulnerable social statuses to stand up for noncitizens who are under threat, even positioning themselves between immigration agents and those who may be at risk. People from around the country have also sent messages and traveled in solidarity to the cities and states where operations have been carried out.
Yet that can have consequences even for those who believe themselves less likely to be attacked. An ICE agent on Sept. 19, 2025, shot a clergyman in the head with a pepper ball while he was protesting at an ICE detention facility in Chicago.
Acting to protect oneself, other people and communities can involve risks. But civil society has power, too, and many communities in war zones in other countries have outlasted their oppressors. Americans are learning and doing what civilians in war zones worldwide have done for decades, while also writing their own story in the process.
Oliver Kaplan, Associate Professor of International Studies, University of Denver
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
