7.14.26 Action Center Update
Welcome to the Action Center Weekly Update. Each week, we’ll share:
A brief analysis of critical issues in this political moment
Immediate actions you can take
Resources to deepen knowledge and strengthen our collective work to side with love
Nothing is inevitable. Justice movements are built by ordinary people who come together to defeat oppression and nurture a loving world. You are not alone. We have power. Together, we can create a just and thriving future.
Movements are strongest when we act together. Organize with your teams and networks, and take these actions in community. For practical tools, see our Organizing School and Trainings & Webinars.
Decriminalization & Immigration
Core Principle: Criminalization and dehumanization deny the dignity of our communities. Safety cannot come at the expense of others. As people of faith, we proclaim a future of care, abundance, and mutuality—not domination.
The Update:
There is much to mourn this week—the disappearance and death of Nolan Wells in Mississippi, the ICE killing of father and worker Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas, and and the ICE killing of Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine.
May Day Strong, a coalition we are part of, wrote “The stories change. The playbook doesn't. This is what it looks like when a system treats the lives of Black people, immigrants, and working families as expendable. They try to hide the truth and when the truth threatens to come out, the witnesses get locked up and the story gets buried. We have seen this before. And every time, it has been working people organizing together that forced them to back down. We are strongest when we stand together.”
That is why we will continue organizing.
Yesterday, hundreds of faith leaders gathered to pray and train at a historic church in New Jersey, a station on the Underground Railroad, holy ground where our ancestors moved people from captivity to freedom. They then took action together at Delaney Hall, where GEO Group is caging our neighbors. As Faith in New Jersey, leading the action, explains it: “This corporation runs our halfway houses, manages re-entry for our people coming home, and puts itself between our unhoused loved ones and the care they deserve. We are fighting for families: families separated by immigration detention, families torn apart by prisons, families welcoming loved ones home, and every beloved neighbor treated as disposable by systems built to punish instead of heal.”
May we continue forward faithfully and strategically, inspired by the Kairos Center’s Litany of Resistance:
With the business of criminalization,
we will not comply.
With all who profit from mass incarceration and mass surveillance,
we will not comply.
With the dissemination of hatred and lies,
we will not comply.
With the hoarding of billions,
we will not comply.
With the dismantling of rights,
we will not comply.
With policies that cage and kill,
we will not comply.
So as we go forth today in the Spirit of Disruptive Love, let us build the power it takes to topple tyrants. Let us bend every handcuff into house keys. Let us tear down every prison wall and build communities of welcome and abundance. Another world is possible. Let’s get to work building it together!
Amen, and may it be so!
Take Action:
In the wake of Joan Sebatian Guerrero’s murder by ICE, one of the ways you can help is by donating to the Maine Solidarity Fund that gets funds to people who need it most quickly, and they are critically low on funds right now.
Amplify and share about Monday’s action at Delaney Hall. Facebook / Instagram
Take action to extend TPS for Haiti. On Friday, work permits expired for 330,000 Haitians living lawfully in the United States. Nurses. Home health aides. Parents. Neighbors who have built lives here over sixteen years, since the earthquake that first brought them Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protection. Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to strip those protections. The administration didn't hesitate. The ICE deportation regime—the one that has been picking people off the streets—is now turning its machinery on refugees. We are following the call of our partners at The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti to call our Senators. Please help us get TPS for Haiti extended using this script.
Resources:
Read:
What You Can Do Right Now, by Scot Nakagawa. “The most common thing I hear from people who are not directly targeted by the immigration assault is some version of: I want to do something. I just don’t know what. That’s an honest place to start.”
Learn:
Defend and Recruit has updated their playbook with resources for all kinds of immigration defense fights—download and use the sections related to your work!
Join:
Wednesday, July 15 — Justice for Lorenzo National Call. Join the family, local organizers, and national organizations to fight for justice for Lorenzo and everyone impacted by ongoing state violence. Justice for Lorenzo means justice for everyone living under the threat of unchecked immigration enforcement violence in our country.
Watch/Listen:
Tune Up to Show Up: A Skills & Risk Assessment Refresher - Recording | Side With Love
Since 2025, the US has seen a huge increase in protests, direct actions, and public witness as mass numbers of people show up in sustained, coordinated resistance to fascism. At the same time, we've seen the Administration respond to these movements in increasingly aggressive ways, from violently confronting people in the streets to overcharging for minor offenses and pursuing grossly disproportionate sentences.
In this context, how should our risk calculus change? How can we gauge which actions to participate in? What baseline skills and habits should we practice to keep ourselves and our communities as safe as possible?
Whether you're newly participating in justice movements, or you've got years of experience in direct action, organizing, and mutual aid, this webinar will help you understand the specific risks and opportunities of this moment and reinforce best practices for showing up grounded and ready. Specific topics include high-level overviews of:
Risk calculus in the shifting legal landscape
Discerning whether an action is the right one for you
Baseline personal safety and security practices
Know Your Rights fundamentals
Public communications best practices
Climate Justice
Core Principle: A just and loving world is also a flourishing one. A fossil-free future is possible, where clean energy is a human right and all beings thrive. To get there, we must create new systems, norms, and practices.
The Update:
Scientists predict a very strong El Niño will begin this October and continue through early spring 2027. Growing in strength, this year’s El Niño is expected to be one of the largest since 1950 (when documentation began), and will ocean condition supercharge extreme weather globally.
According to the World Resources Institute, “Scientists predict an increasingly likely ‘Super El Niño,’ where ocean temperatures in the Pacific rise higher than 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) above average and alter atmospheric conditions more than usual. The result could be stronger, more persistent impacts around the world that go beyond upending some of the world’s most productive sources of seafood and impacting the livelihoods of coastal communities, extending to droughts, floods, cyclones, extreme heat and more.”
To add to the uncertainty, the past 11 years have been the hottest on record. We do not know how extreme heat conditions will impact El Niño.
It is okay to feel the grief and fear that come with ongoing mass climate disruption and environmental degradation. Our Earth, and all life on this planet, is in crisis. Yes, we must act to mitigate this crisis, build resilience to live well through it, and faithfully believe that a thriving world for all really is possible. We also must feel.
Some good news:
Nineteen out of 50 states are considering or passing state-level Data Center Moratoriums.
NASA Satellites Show Mangrove Forest Rebound!
Take Action:
Need some inspiration? Watch the Green Sanctuary 2030 Celebration recording and check out the database of Green Sanctuary actions to learn how other congregations are creating climate justice in our communities.
Check out the Database of UU Climate Justice Actions by accessing the Mobilizing for Climate Justice Materials. Links to the database are in the Introduction and Sharing Progress.
More Than Just Parks is extensively monitoring U.S. public lands policy and collecting on-the-record comments. Clearly defining what’s at stake and pairing it with an immediate action, their Public Lands Action Network is an effective public comment tool.
Resources:
Read:
This beautiful essay on ecological grief encourages community grieving practices like the 2019 Icelandic funeral for the Okjokull glacier.
Learn:
This new report from the Initiative For Energy Justice offers a framework for an energy justice approach to disaster resilience and recovery. Find inspiration in these 5 case studies from California, Texas, North Carolina, and Puerto Rico.
Join:
The proposed Project Jupiter data center and fracked natural gas power plant will deplete the fresh water of a desert community, unnecessarily drive up utility costs, re-open a pipeline, and produce more annual greenhouse gas emissions than all of New Mexico’s major cities combined. Local communities are fighting for clean water and dignity. We can’t drink data. Join UUs for Social Justice and Side With Love online on July 23rd 8pm EST to learn from the organizers building community power in southern New Mexico. Register here.
Watch/Listen:
This interview with the First UU Congregation of Ann Arbor joyfully celebrates their whole-church sustainability efforts. Their congregation is fully solar-powered, and deep care for our shared home is in the bones of this community.
Together, we practice the world we long for. Together, we win.
