[Re-posted with permission from Expose Fascism Walla Walla collective]
We’d like to take a moment to discuss an infographic and thread shared by Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network (WAISN) with regard to the use of whistles in grass roots community defense strategy against ICE, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and the police.
While we will have many critical things to say about them below, we acknowledge that they have been a preeminent resource and authority in this space for years, and no doubt have helped train and support many people whose experiences are valid and ought not be discounted.
And yet, recently, WAISN have not only discouraged the use of whistles by on-the-ground community defenders but have made the claim that such whistles are harmful.
We would like to take some time out to acknowledge that while this view exists, other people on the ground disagree, and we are unequivocally on the side of those who disagree with WAISNs recent infographic.
As such, we would like to address some of WAISN’s claims re: “Why Whistles Undermine Those Goals”
> CLAIM: “Whistles could make it harder to document and capture information.”
This is precisely what a legal observer’s function during mass mobilization is and always has been. Their function as witness is precisely why legal observers (and press) have been explicitly targeted by ICE — and police — during times of uprising, protest, and civil unrest.
It is the job of a legal observer to document and capture such information amid chaos and violence. This is precisely what the training for legal observers entails. Whistles do not meaningfully prevent this observation and documentation from occurring anymore than chanting, blowing car horns, or banging pots and pans, or the general rabble of any public gathering does. This has been thoroughly demonstrated by Minnesota’s dedicated legal observers in the past weeks of high-intensity occupation, as well as other legal observers who have been present during all manner of unrest.
The many protests and uprisings legal observers have been present within are often characterized by chaos, and clashes with authorities, more often than not instigated by those same authorities. A legal observer’s role is to observe, record, report amidst unrest *despite* that. Suggesting otherwise is, at best, questionable from an org that ought to know better.
> CLAIM: “Whistles escalate already volatile ICE agents who don’t respect our rights”
The language here is insidious. It places the blame for escalation by an inherently violent agency on the whistles, and those who use them, rather than the agency itself, or better still the state apparatus. It suggests the violence and escalation is an aberration of their function rather than explicitly the purpose.
In every instance of violent escalation by ICE, CBP, local and state police, or any arm of the State apparatus, they are *always* the aggressor. The violence *is* the point. This is the function of ICE, The Police, and every agency of any regime at its very core. Whether they have a D or an R by their name. They are and always have been defenders of the violent, inequitable status quo and the enemy of the people.
This violence is inherent to these officers’ and agents’ function. Enacting violence on behalf of the State, paid for by public coin, is very literallyhttps://www.hoplofobia.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Charles-Cobb-This-Nonviolent-Stuffll-Get-You-Killed.pdf why these agencies exist at all. The violent escalation they participate in is inextricable from it. Regardless of whether or not a protest, a strike, a rally, a general assembly, etc., was observing the black-letter law, completely legal, and got the permits. Your rights are and always have been beside the point.
Cops are the vanguard of capital. Of white supremacy. Of hierarchy. Of colonial occupation. For nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. Your opponent has none.
Read: This Non-Violent Stuff’ll Get You Killed by Charles Cobb Jr.
> CLAIM: “Whistles increase the likelihood of violence toward bystanders, or the detained person”
This point is just a lazy reiteration of the claim that “whistles escalate already volatile ICE agents who don’t respect our rights” which we have already addressed.
So instead of reiterating the reality that ICE, and CBP exists as an enforcement of the violence inherent to the maintenance of borders, we will instead discuss the function of these whistles, what they do, and why they are effective.
Whistles have been utilized across the nation, particularly in Minnesota, Chicago and LA to act as an instant alarm to the presence of federal immigration agents visiting the area.
They are used to both warn those who might be hunted that they might seek safety, and to gather those willing and able to impede upon such operations.
These whistles signal specific action. Commonly, three short bursts (PREE-PREE-PREE) to indicate a confirmed sighting and one long, sustained note (PREEEEEEEE) to indicate an active kidnapping in progress.
Organizers of whistle blocs and brigades across the country have implored neighbors to follow the noise. Show up. The object is not only to turn the arrest into a public event with high visibility, but to make those operations as difficult as possible for those agents engaging within them.
We repeat for emphasis: the goal is absolutely to prevent deportations and make the work of masked goons as grueling as possible.
Effectiveness is not measured by how many bodies we have at a protest, but by how difficult we make the work of ICE, CBP, and the police who collude with the above agencies, make no mistake.
Most importantly: effectiveness is measured the prevention of any abduction.
The object of resistance is and always has been to throw sand into the gears of the war machine. If all you have is the dirt under your finger nails, you throw it. If all you can do is spit, then spit. If all you have is your voice, then holler. If all you have is your pen, write.
As crimethinc wrote in the thread we have provided below:
> Trump supporters are claiming that whistles should be “considered a violent weapon,” that their use constitutes “interference” with immigration enforcement operations or even “assault.”
>
> In other words—the rapid response networks are working. The whistles are working.
>
> Let no one tell you otherwise.
The fact that the infographic WAISN shared discourages the use of whistles happens to coincide with the push by Trump supporters, and the MAGA regime to criminalize whistles does not imply collusion between WAISN and MAGA, but that’s beside the point when we ask ourselves, “What would intentional wreckers be doing any differently?”
Disappearing families quietly helps the State, not families.
To suggest the use of whistles invite violence against either the whistle blower, the legal observer, the protestor or the detainee is not different then to ask a victim of assault what they were wearing, how they were behaving, or how much they had to drink to invite assault.
There is no way to live with a domestic abuser kindly enough, supportive enough, to avoid being yelled at, struck, strangled. “Why didn’t you clean? You know a dirty home sets him off.” “Why were you vacuuming? You knew he had a hangover.” There is no way to protest peacefully enough, perfectly enough, for fascists not to bash your head in and blame you for it. They hate you for your resistance, no matter how it is presented. They do what they want to do and reach for the excuse later.
No matter how within your rights you were at the time of the violence enacted against you occurred, they will find cause to blame you for incitement. Those who support and agree with that violence, let alone engage in it, will do so regardless of your behavior.
Read: “Right-wing media figures are furious at activists for using whistles during ICE activity” by Patty Armstrong
> CLAIM: “Whistles create confusion for community members and children while having reduced utility in a suburban environment.”
To bend over backward with good faith, let’s take just the second part of this and find a point of agreement. If all you have is 3-5 people, and there are a dozen ICE agents with another 30 local cops at a rural construction site or in a suburban cul-de-sac, WAISN’s guides for gathering information, observing the abductions, and mostly quietly documenting all relevant information for later follow-up is probably the best you can do. A whistle is not a panacea; no single tactic can be sufficient everywhere.
But if you’re in downtown Seattle or a crowd of people, or any neighborhood where you’ve talked to your neighbors and can alert more people by digital messaging and proximate sound, you do want to alert and call reinforcements to come and disrupt the disappearing of your neighbors into the camps. Because let’s state plainly what’s happening, and let’s not give short shrift to all the invisible, boring work that goes into making sure a whistle is a signal understood by others rather than just noise.
And now let’s straighten our backs out and address what else is contained in WAISN’s statement.
Children are community members.
They are not separate from community.
They are community.
Children have been targeted, and kidnapped explicitly by ICE and CBP. They are trafficked to “detention centers” such as Dilley Detention Center in Texas.
This is where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, separated from his blue, bunny-ear hat and Spider-Man backpack as well as him home, was held after being used as bait by ICE to lure his parents, legal asylum seekers with no criminal records for capture.
The very same detention center where detainees protested horrific conditions. There have been reports of worms in their food, water that isn’t potable, and separation from their families as punishment to say nothing for torture and abuses noted by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights.
These very conditions made Liam Conejo Ramos sick and unable to eat.
Dilley is far from the only example of horrific conditions at these concentration camps. This is the same “detention center” where a measles outbreak is currently in progress. Dilley is holding nursing infants and toddlers. Children of all ages. Pregnant people, elderly and disabled.
If we want to discuss how children are affected by ICE, CBP ,and police that conversation is not about whistles used by community defenders and protestors.
Anne Frank died as a result of typhus in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Anne Frank, who lost her citizenship as of 1941. Is it still not time to make comparisons? Poor conditions, the outbreak of disease and medical neglect is one of the most frequent causes of death in concentration camps. It is also worth it to note that Nazis frequently called concentration camps “detention centers”.
Read:
* https://www.southernborder.org/mounting_death_toll_fifth_child_dies_while_in_immigration_detention
* https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/immigrant-kids-keep-dying-cbp-detention
* https://secure.phr.org/secure/tweet_your_representatives
* https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/us/migrant-girl-death-cbp-damages.html
Some of those articles go farther back than Trumps regime does, because the abuses by ICE and CBP are not unique to Trump. We will not treat them as such. They have always been present, but haven’t always been as visible. To call any of this a lesser evil under any presidents regime is repulsive and we will not entertain it.
For WAISN to highlight children, specifically children in this point, as both somehow separate from community, and insist the whistles used in the efforts toward community defense, cause confusion for them, and therefore harm, given what it is people are using whistles as an alarm system for is an especially egregious claim to make in light of the unique vulnerability of children targeted by ICE, CBP, and police.
They, of all non-profit organizations, should know better. Which is why we will not accept it.
What exactly is being suggested here? That whistles are more upsetting and confusing for children than being stolen from your family by masked agents?
To call that “bad faith” is putting it not just mildly but milquetoast, and this is not a time for milquetoast in anything.
James Baldwin once said:
> The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.
Children everywhere, but especially those who are uniquely targeted by ICE and CBP are our universal responsibility as what Mr. Rogers once called “Helpers”.
He implored children to look for the helpers, anytime a disaster was happening. What he said to adults was to impress upon us that it was our responsibility to become the helpers children looked toward during times of distress and catastrophe.
Children are our universal responsibility.
These children stolen by ICE and CBP are no less precious than your children. (What would you ask people to do to protect your children? What limits would you seek to impose on those who hope to rescue them?) It is absolutely our duty to rescue them from camps, and prevent their abduction at all costs.
To address the “reduced utility in suburban areas” claim again: It is not new for radicals to advise people to talk to their neighbors and build community with them. Learn their names, know what they do, be aware of their needs and help them where you can. Solidarity is not a four letter word, but a weapon.
This currently applies to the use of whistles in community defense. It is not merely a tactic for densely populace metropolitan areas, but for every neighborhood that comes together, and understands what the signal means.
When you use a whistle, to alert your neighbors to the presence of ICE, CBP, Police or any agency / reactionary militia in support of said agencies, remember to apply “SALUTE” in order to vet sightings before announcing them:
SIZE: Number of agents, officers, or vehicles present.
ACTIVITY: What the individuals are doing (e.g., stopping a person, entering a building).
LOCATION: The exact address, intersection, or specific location.
UNIT: Markings, agency names, patches, or uniform details.
TIME: The precise time and date the incident was witnessed.
EQUIPMENT: Vehicles, weapons, tools, or dogs involved.
Get footage or pictures when able. Record information only if you are able to do so safely.
The time for what the infographic WAISN has presented is long passed. It’s undeniably good to know your rights; it’s undeniably good to assert them and educate others in them. Make the bastards work for it at every step, in every situation.
Relatedly, it’s also wise and advisable to know when you’re going beyond the protections of the law for certain actions, to recognize and accept the potential consequences in doing so.
And yet: ICE is ignoring the law with relative impunity at this point.
And yet: we need to keep people out of the system as much as we can, even when it’s ostensibly legal right now.
But, it is vital to point out any organization that thinks following the law is the best or only strategy for combatting lawless regimes is not meeting this moment.
