Raids. Masked agents. Jump-out squads. Detention. Deportation. Death.
Stop Taking Our People
STOP names the violence for what it is, and Break the ICE Machine is how we interrupt it—exposing the system, jamming its gears, and organizing amongst ourselves making it impossible for the machine to operate.
Operation Break the ICE Machine is our experiment inside the STOP frame — focused on disrupting the infrastructure that supports the Trump’s regime’s invasion and siege of our neighborhoods and communities.
Together, we’ll stop the invasion of the Bodysnatchers: ICE, federal agents and masked mercenaries. Together, we’ll break the ICE machine, and make them stop taking our people.
This work is rooted in Black diaspora analysis and offered to all the movement ecosystems: disability, queer and immigrant rights, Black liberation, labor, faith, anti-authoritarian, and anti-war.
STOP TAKING
OUR PEOPLE
STOP (Stop Taking Our People) is not a campaign brand or a slogan. It is naming reality.
STOP names how immigration enforcement and criminal law enforcement are different parts of the same system- a machine powered by anti-Blackness and designed to control, cage, and disappear people.
ICE is not separate from policing. It is being used to expand the police state.
The lines between the Bodysnatchers: ICE, CBP, federal taskforces, the National Guard, private prisons, surveillance contractors, police and sheriffs have almost completely dissolved. They already work together on joint task forces, surveillance, data sharing and caging of our people. The goal of this regime is to merge the form and function of their Bodysnatchers to make it easier for the regime to control us.
WHY STOP – AND WHY NOW
From Minnesota to Los Angeles.
From Chicago to Memphis.
From Louisiana’s parish jails to federal deployments in immigrant cities.
The same machinery is being piloted, refined, and scaled.
This violence is not about nationality.
It is not about citizenship.
It is not about safety.
It is about control.
The bodysnatchers grab people from courthouses, jails, hospitals, campuses, workplaces, and streets. They move people through cages that look and function the same — regardless of whether they are labeled “prisons” or “detention centers.”
Once built to control Black life, this machinery does not stay contained.
Its nets widen.
Its targets expand.
Its violence deepens.
STOP is a warning — and an invitation — to change course together.
CORE VALUES
1. Anti-Blackness Is the Engine
This system is not driven by “migrant status.” It is driven by anti-Blackness.
The tactics being used — racial profiling, masked agents, militarized gear, raids, surveillance, foot chases, detention — come directly from the long history of Black criminalization in the U.S.
2. One Machine, Not Many
Policing, prisons, detention, deportation, protest criminalization, and surveillance are not separate systems. They are interconnected parts of a single apparatus of control.
Treating them as siloed issues weakens all of us.
3. The Bodysnatchers Don’t Care About Borders
They care about protecting whiteness at all costs and are willing to engage in the most violent tactics to meet their goal.
Once these tactics are normalized against Black communities, they are expanded to migrants, workers, protesters, students — anyone the state decides is disposable or “in the way.”
4. Divest / Invest Is Strategy, Not Rhetoric
Every dollar spent on the Bodysnatchers is a dollar stolen from life-giving conditions.
We must divest from militarization, cages, surveillance, task forces, and enforcement contracts and instead invest in real safety: housing, healthcare, food access, education, disability justice, harm reduction, and community care.
WHAT STOP ASKS OF US
STOP is both a calling in and a calling out.
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Reframe: Stop treating immigration raids and invasions as isolated “immigration issues.” Name them as racist authoritarian test runs.
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Center Black Diaspora analysis: This strengthens — not weakens — fights for all migrants and working-class communities.
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See one system: Organize policing, prisons, detention, deportation, and protest criminalization as interconnected.
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Move from shame to responsibility: Many of us missed early warning signs. STOP asks us to name that honestly and move differently together.
DISRUPT.
DIVEST.
DISMANTLE.
OPERATION BREAK THE ICE MACHINE
Operation Break the ICE Machine is an experiment targeting one often-invisible pillar of enforcement infrastructure: the hospitality industry — especially hotels.
The bodysnatchers don’t teleport. They travel. They sleep. They eat. They hold trainings and conferences in ballrooms. If they have to stay somewhere, we can make it inhospitable for them.
Why Focus on Hotels?
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They are essential infrastructure for enforcement operations
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They are sensitive to pressure on profits
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Their workers are disproportionately Black, migrant, and people of color
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They offer real opportunities for labor–community alliances
Why Hilton?
Hilton is one of the largest hotel chains in the world, with massive presence in U.S. cities and global hubs. Hilton’s CEO, Christopher J. Nassetta supports this regime’s economic policies, including its tax policies. He also supports this administration’s tax cuts and other benefits for billionaires over investment in people. By the end of the third quarter of fiscal year 2025, Hilton brought in $11.74 billion in revenue, an 8.8% increase from the previous year directly profiting from policies that harm our communities.
It markets itself as welcoming and inclusive — while quietly housing Bodysnatchers who are disappearing Black and migrant communities.
That contradiction is strategic terrain.
Join Us to Break the ICE Machine
We are inviting organizations and communities to test a mix of tactics, including:
Consumer Pressure & Boycotts
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Publicly identifying hotels hosting ICE and related agencies
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Call on people, organizations and conferences to boycott Hilton and the franchises that go along with its policies to host Bodysnatchers
Direct Action
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Pickets, noise demos, creative disruptions at Hilton properties and event
ACTION STEPS: STOP AND BREAK THE ICE MACHINE WITH US
You don’t need permission to start.
Use the STOP Frame
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Adopt STOP language in your analysis
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Name the fusion of immigration enforcement and criminal punishment
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Center Black immigrants and Black communities in storytelling
Help Break the ICE Machine
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Identify hotel targets in your city
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Co-design actions with workers, unions, and community groups
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Use “Stop the bodysnatchers” and “Break the ICE Machine” language publicly
Share What You Learn
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This is an experiment. Share tactics, lessons, and shifts
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We uplift experiments — we don’t control them
Join
US
TAKE THE PLEDGE
To Break the ICE Machine, I pledge to boycott Hilton and any of their franchises who accept reservations or serve as event and meeting venues for the Bodysnatchers. I will continue pressuring the Hilton until they change their policies and refuse to host bodysnatchers.
We are witnessing the escalating violence of the Bodysnatchers, ICE, federal agents and masked mercenaries, who are invading our communities. Their goal is to build a tax-payer funded private army under the Trump regime’s control.
We won’t let that happen.
By signing this pledge, you also commit to:
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Naming that immigration enforcement and criminal law enforcement are different parts of the same system- a machine powered by anti-Blackness and designed to control, cage, and disappear people.
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Working in my community to oppose the invasions of various Bodysnatchers - which include: federal law enforcement like border patrol and ICE, surveillance, local and state police.
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Identifying other institutions and businesses that benefit from the business of snatching our people from their homes, schools, colleges and universities, neighborhoods, places of worship and play and workplaces.
Stop the invasion by the bodysnatchers.
Break the ICE Machine.
Build something freer in its place.
JOIN STOP & BREAK THE ICE MACHINE
This is an experiment — and an invitation.
Plug in where you are, with what you have.
STOP is a shared frame. Break the ICE Machine is a shared experiment. We’re building toward disruption, divestment, and dismantling — together.
Use this form to tell us:
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How you’re already organizing
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Where you want to plug in
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What capacity you have right now
There is no “right” way to join.
CAMPAIGN EXPLAINER
The lines between the Bodysnatchers: ICE, CBP, federal taskforces, the National Guard, private prisons, surveillance contractors, police and sheriffs have almost completely dissolved. They already work together on joint task forces, surveillance, data sharing and caging of our people.
STOP Taking Our People is a frame that helps us see how this regime is creating a tax-payer funded private army that powers immigration raids, detention, deportation, and surveillance. It is not about citizenship.
The Bodysnatchers don’t care about borders.
They care about control.
Break the ICE Machine is our experiment to disrupt the infrastructure that keeps this system running — starting with hotels.
Stop taking our people.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is STOP?
STOP (Stop Taking Our People) is a Black-led narrative frame and organizing lens that names how immigration enforcement and the criminal punishment system are fusing into one machine. STOP helps movements see clearly that ICE is not separate from policing — it is an extension of the police state. STOP is not a campaign brand or a single-issue project. It is naming reality so people can organize more effectively to stop the harm.
Why focus on Black communities and Black analysis?
Because Black communities are always the first testing ground for state repression. The tactics being used today — immigration raids, surveillance, detention, militarized agents, racial profiling — come directly from the long history of controlling Black life in the United States. Centering Black analysis does not narrow the movement. It strengthens fights for all migrants and working-class communities by revealing how the machinery actually works. If we understand how the system is built to target Black people, we can stop it before it expands further.
Is STOP anti-immigrant or anti-migrant?
No. STOP is explicitly pro-migrant and pro-community safety. STOP names that immigration enforcement is being used as a tool to expand the police state — harming Black immigrants, non-Black migrants, indigenous and U.S.-born Black and people of color alike. This frame refuses the false divide between “immigration issues” and “policing issues” because that divide has never protected our communities.
Is STOP anti-police or anti-law enforcement?
STOP is abolitionist. It is anti-violence, anti-criminalization, and anti-disappearance. We are naming that policing, ICE, detention, and deportation are interconnected systems designed to control and remove people — not to keep communities safe. Real safety comes from housing, healthcare, food access, education, disability justice, and community care — not from raids, cages, or armed agents.
What do you mean by “bodysnatchers”?
“Bodysnatchers” names the agents and systems that seize people’s bodies for control, punishment, profit, and political power. They don’t care about borders. They don’t care about citizenship. They care about control. Using this language helps make visible what is often hidden or sanitized by bureaucratic terms like “enforcement,” “operations,” or “public safety.”
What is Operation Break the ICE Machine?
Break the ICE Machine is an experiment within the STOP frame. It targets one often-invisible pillar of enforcement infrastructure: the hospitality industry — especially hotels that house ICE, CBP, and related agencies during immigration raids, trainings, and deployments. The goal is to disrupt, divest from, and dismantle the systems that allow this violence to function.
Why target hotels?
Because the bodysnatchers don’t teleport. They travel. They sleep. They eat. They hold conferences and trainings. Hotels are a critical — but often hidden — part of enforcement infrastructure. They are also highly sensitive to public pressure and profit disruption. Targeting hotels exposes how deeply normalized this violence has become — and creates real leverage to stop it.
Why Hilton?
Hilton is one of the largest hotel chains in the world, with massive presence in U.S. cities and global hubs. Hilton’s CEO, Christopher J. Nassetta supports this regime’s economic policies, including its tax policies. He also supports this administration’s tax cuts and other benefits for billionaires over investment in people. By the end of the third quarter of fiscal year 2025, Hilton brought in $11.74 billion in revenue, an 8.8% increase from the previous year directly profiting from policies that harm our communities. It markets itself as welcoming and inclusive — while quietly housing Bodysnatchers who are disappearing Black and migrant communities. That contradiction is strategic terrain.
Is this just about one company or one industry?
No. Hotels are a starting point — not the end goal. Break the ICE Machine is about learning how to disrupt infrastructure, build power, and create pressure that can be expanded to other pillars of the system. This is an experiment designed to teach movements how to block harm while building something better.
Is this just about one company or one industry?
No. Hotels are a starting point — not the end goal. Break the ICE Machine is about learning how to disrupt infrastructure, build power, and create pressure that can be expanded to other pillars of the system. This is an experiment designed to teach movements how to block harm while building something better.
Is STOP only for Black communities?
No — but it is Black-led. STOP is rooted in Black Diaspora analysis because anti-Blackness is the engine of this system. The STOP frame is rooted in Black diaspora analysis and offered to different movement ecosystems: disability, queer and immigrant rights, Black liberation, labor, faith, anti-authoritarian, and anti-war movements. Joining STOP means respecting Black leadership and organizing with it — not around it.
What does “divest / invest” actually mean here?
It means refusing half-measures. We cannot reform our way out of a system designed to disappear people. STOP calls for: - Divesting from ICE, policing, surveillance, detention, and enforcement contracts - Investing in housing, healthcare, food access, education, disability justice, harm reduction, and community-based safety This is about shifting resources — not just rhetoric.
What if my organization hasn’t centered Black analysis before?
That’s not disqualifying. STOP asks us to move from shame to responsibility. Many organizations missed early warning signs. What matters now is the willingness to see clearly, change course, and act differently together.
How can I get involved?
You can: - Use the STOP frame in your messaging and analysis - Join or support actions to break the ICE machine - Help disrupt Hilton contracts and enforcement infrastructure - Share lessons, tools, and experiments with others There is no single entry point — only shared responsibility.
Who is behind STOP and Break the ICE Machine?
STOP and Operation Break the ICE Machine are being developed and advanced by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) and partners. This work is part of a broader effort to rebuild organizing capacity, alignment, and political clarity in this moment.
What happens after I sign up?
You’ll receive: - Updates and political education on the STOP frame - Invitations to actions, trainings, and experiments - Tools to use locally and nationally - Opportunities to help disrupt, divest, and dismantle the ICE machine