Will Shonbrun: This Must Stop! 

Gangs of armed, masked men, in all hours of the night or early morning, loudly knocking on the doors of houses or apartments, demanding entrance and brutally throwing people down – men, women and children no matter how young – and yelling at them to obey while they drag them into the streets and into their vehicles, no matter how they resist, and their children cry and scream in terror. 

That is what it has come to in this country. Every day and in any place, terrifying scenes like this are happening. We’ve seen these disturbing scenes on the news day and night. 

And we know full well who these brutes are, and there is no control over them because it’s our own government dictating these actions, all in the name of protecting us from supposed criminal undocumented immigrants. All this madness is the demented work of Donald Trump and his profoundly immoral, blood-thirsty sycophants, notably and most visibly the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and United States homeland security advisor, Stephen Miller. 

And this reign of terror, only now at its beginning stages, is slated to expand to every town and city in the U.S. until this pogrom of incarceration and deportation of 12 million has ceased. This is the doing of the President of this country, and for most of our citizenry it is an insane, evil circus that is beyond the comprehension range of any normal thinking person. All at the dictate of a man who would be king, with an abhorrent compulsion for unbridled wealth, and not one ounce of empathy or concern for his fellow beings. 

According to statistics from TRAC – Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse – a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization founded in 1989, using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), it was determined that as of September, 2025, 59,762 persons were detained by arresting agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol. Of those arrested, 42,755 have no criminal convictions. 

Texas is the state with the most ICE detainees, at 13,415, with California is listed as having 3,801 detainees. San Francisco’s area office has the highest number in ICE’s Alternatives to Detention (ATD ) monitoring programs, according to data current as of September 20, 2025. 

The ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) does not maintain a public database specifically designed to track real-time or historical data on all ICE and CBP immigration raids. Instead, they focus on documenting and challenging ICE/CBP activities through other means, such as Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits, public records requests, reports, and a specific database tracking conditions within detention facilities.  

Statistics from the Deportation Data Project, headquartered in Berkeley, show the following: From September 2023 to late July 2025, ICE had recorded 292,000 arrests, and Customs and Border Patrol had recorded 339,000 detainers. 

Just think for a moment how it must feel for a mother, or a father, to have a child ripped from their arms by brutal hands when there is nothing they can do to stop it. Think of the fear that envelops that young one, and think what will then happen to him or her. That is the overwhelming terror that must be felt through every fiber of its being. And every bit as painful and frightening as it is for the child, it must be so for the parent as well. 

We cannot, must not, let this continue to happen. It must become the clarion call that drives us to revolt and cry out in our demand, with one voice, that our government must cease and desist in what they’re doing and return our country to a peaceful and normal and just way for our immigrant neighbors to live among us. We have to make this demand, each and every one of us, until this madness ceases. 

See you at the next No Kings rally, where we may bring our number to more than seven million strong, the turnout October 18 for the largest single protest in U.S. history in opposition to government policy. Let’s make it 10 million at the next one and show this President and his rabid followers in no uncertain terms where the people of this country stand on the matter of a sane and just immigration policy. 

What we must do is use the tools and methods at our disposal to fight back: Bring our cameras to every demonstration, alert the North Bay Rapid Response Network (www.northbayop.org). Share photos, videos and community statements with local media, establishing a public record of opposition and any evidence of abusive behavior that can be used in courts.