This is a partial report back. I wasn’t able to make it by 6:00 but I did make it to the ICE Headquarters in time to see the following event by the Party for Socialism and Liberation. I knew from the moment I arrived that nobody holding a megaphone that night would be keen to hand it to such a radical as myself and so I fell into a mode of operation I’m comfortable with around Marxist organizations- that of a reporter. Maybe this time I was in a ski mask, but I dedicated my time there to forming an analysis of their tactics and organization in light of my experience witnessing political movements from across all of the possible political spectrums (from economic to social to schizophrenic).
Over the last seven months, the Trump administration has taken sweeping measures to further detain, deport, and destroy the lives of immigrants. It’s an effort that has resulted not just in the bombastic cruelty of sending hundreds of detainees to a notorious El Salvador prison or building a detention center in the alligator-and python-infested swamplands of Florida, but also in a steep increase in immigrations arrests across the country (in Arizona, they’re up 113% since the inauguration). In June, in response to a government call for and subsequent spike in Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and kidnappings, the people of Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Austin, Tucson, and other cities across the country protested and rioted on behalf of themselves and their families, friends, and neighbors. Despite the fierce commitment and bravery of those in the streets, the government’s mass deportation efforts are likely to only accelerate. As we seek ways to respond to these ongoing threats, we can look to—among other examples—rapid response networks, which have long existed in cities across the country, including Tucson.
What follows is an interview conducted by Living & Fighting with a member of the Tucson Community Rapid Response Network. In this interview, they discuss the history the network, what it’s accomplished and the challenges it’s faced, and what principled community response to deportations could look like in the coming months and years.
This reportback was originally posted anonymously to It’s Going Down
Report back from Phoenix, AZ on recent autonomous demonstration against ICE.
There was a call for an autonomous action in downtown Phoenix this past Saturday. In contrast to the usual events sponsored by the PSL and other do nothing boring-ass orgs, this one appeared more promising. That evening, my friends and I headed to Roosevelt street to see what the night would be.
The following reportback was submitted to us anonymously for publication:
“On the evening of June 14th, 2025, a mostly-Anarchist “demonstration” was planned on Phoenix’s Roosevelt Row. While details of the events were left sparse, the location and a time of 8PM were disseminated widely on social media as well as at other local protests earlier that same day. This is a report-back of someone on the ground and in observance of this action.
This zine and reportback was originally posted to the MBTA Distro website, discussing a failed action that took place on occupied Wampanoag and Narragansett land, so-called “providence, rhode island”.
Its analysis of the failures of the PSL (Party for Socialism and Liberation), and how it chooses to portray these failures to its own benefit are pertinent to the struggles of anarchists across Turtle Island, and so we have chosen to repost it here.
By 7 A.M on April 8th, the Phoenix Convention Center ballroom was beginning to fill up. Attendees included local law enforcement and top officials from an alphabet soup of agencies: the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP), U.S. Customs and Border Protections (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
This week, Tucson saw two successive wins in the fight against state violence. Two demonstrations, organized in earnest but with cautious and liberal strategies, didn’t go quite as planned.
In the late afternoon of May 12th, a small crowd convened along the street at North Wilmot Road in Tucson, Arizona just outside of St. Joseph’s Hospital. The crowd numbered somewhere in the range of 50-100 people: an eclectic mix of local anarchists, subculturally-affiliated 20-or-30-somethings, boomer activists, petition circulators, journalists, at least one priest, and representatives of various activist organizations, including Derechos Humanos and the local Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) chapter—each clad in their usual bright red shirts.
