Action Center Update 10.6.26

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.

Resources

Read:

• The City That Brought Down an ICE Airline: In Chicago, progressive alderpeople held up a contract until a private equity firm was forced to drop Omni Air International, protecting thousands of immigrants from deportation.

• What Is ICE Air?: Learn more about ICE's massive, secretive, and cruel air operation, which companies are profiting from it, and what you can do to stop it.

Join:

Your congregation has the power to make a difference. Since the 2024 Action of Immediate Witness (AIW) "Solidarity with Palestinians," numerous UU congregations have declared themselves "Apartheid Free Communities." Come hear what that looks like in practice. Representatives from across the country will share the hurdles they overcame, the progress they've made, and how you can bring this commitment to your own congregation. There will be plenty of time for Q&A.

https://www.uujme.org/apartheid_free_webinar

Watch/Listen:

(From ACT/amaha) This African Immigrant Heritage Month, we're highlighting the stories and contributions of African immigrants who are building lives and communities across the U.S.

In the Same Light, a short film developed by Communities United for Status & Protection (CUSP) and coalition partners, centers TPS holders as parents, artists, business owners, neighbors, and community leaders. Directed by second-generation Ethiopian American filmmaker Herrana Addisu, the film offers a look at the people behind the policy and the communities they call home.

Watch In the Same Light and hear from TPS holders whose lives, families, and futures are rooted here: https://youtu.be/JWQEeXz6I5s

Climate Justice

Core Principle: A just and loving world is also a flourishing one. A fossil-free future is possible, one where clean energy is a human right and all beings thrive. To get there, we must create new systems, norms, and practices.

The Update

This week in Vermont, hundreds of people of faith and conscience are taking bold, creative action to Shut Down ICEsurveillance, targeting, and deportation. Vermont hosts the bureaucratic backbone and surveillance infrastructure for ICE activity nationwide. In the loving words of these courageous neighbors:

We struggle for a world where everyone is free, and where no one is criminalized for the color of their skin, their place of birth, or their courage in fighting for safety and liberation. We believe in a world where everyone can access clean air and water, where communities and ecosystems can flourish, and where human bodies are not controlled, hurt, and killed by corporations and governments. We will build a world where life and collective joy are not sacrificed for profit.

Our Universalism demands that we abolish hell on Earth. This includes our Unitarian Universalist demand to abolish ICE.

How is abolishing ICE a loving act of climate justice?

We must refuse to criminalize climate migrants. We must defund community militarization so that we can actually fund mitigation and resilience efforts. More than that, climate justice demands that we truly love our neighbors. Rather than proclaim that only some are worthy of safety, climate justice cultivates a future beyond extraction and exploitation, where all communities thrive and the sacred interdependence of all life is honored.

Within the United States, ICE targets immigrant communities with militarized violence. Many of these neighborhoods are already burdened by climate injustice, including greater proximity to industrial hazards and waste sites, higher levels of air toxicity, and contaminated drinking water. During some abductions, ICE agents deploy chemical weapons, adding to air pollution.

Out of fear of abduction, many of our neighbors are hiding in their homes. Too terrified to go to work, immigrant households hiding from ICE face steep power bills "at a time when cash is tight and fear lingers."

ICE abducted nearly 51,000 beloved neighbors in September 2026, the third straight month ICE set a new record for arrests. This is morally abhorrent. In targeted abductions, like many in this current surge, ICE identifies which neighbors to abduct through resource-intensive AI surveillance and analysis. This AI surveillance is only possible with the data centers that are spreading like a cancer across the country, causing energy bills to spike, consuming astonishing amounts of water, and more.

Once our neighbors are abducted, many of the more than 65,000 beloved immigrants currently in ICE detention are subjected to unclean drinking water and extreme heat risk.

U.S. immigration enforcement flights produce hundreds of thousands of metric tonnes of climate-damaging carbon emissions, shuttling unprecedented numbers of people to detention centers far from home and deporting them to countries across the world.

When our government deports our loved ones, they are sent to some of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world. Our government is targeting immigrants from the countries hit hardest by climate shocks. This must end.

Abolition is climate justice.

On October 5th, U.S. Customs and Border Protection destroyed the 200-year-old Grandmother cottonwood tree and violently arrested tree-sitters in Lochiel, on the Arizona–Mexico border. In the ongoing fight between life and violence, which side are we on?

In the face of such human and planetary degradation, love must be all the stronger. We pray that the detention warehouses our beloveds are trapped in will be transformed into hydroponic farms. We pray that our direct actions of liberating love will free the consciousness of this country, literally unlock our government's cages, and free us all from this unholy violence.

Take Action

• The comment deadline for Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation, a proposed rule published by the Forest Service on 08/20/2026, has been extended to October 6, 2026. Comment here.

• Join Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice in urging the House and Senate to strengthen oversight of immigration agencies and expand the immigrants covered in the next COVID relief bill.

Resources

Learn: Essentials of Climate Action: Justice and Six Questions Congregations Need to Answer About Community Safety

Read:

• UU Minister Arrested in Anti-ICE Protest in Vermont Says the Movement Will Continue

• ICE Detainees Face Greater Risk From Extreme Heat Than Most Prisoners

• Trump Targeting Immigrants From Countries Hit Most by Climate Shocks

Join:

Green Sanctuary 2030 Office Hours
October 7, 2026, 7:00–8:00 PM ET, Online

Drop into any of our monthly Office Hours to ask questions, learn what other congregations are doing, and get the support you need to create climate justice in your community. Guided by UU values, the new Green Sanctuary 2030 process and community of practice are here to support any UU working on climate justice, nurturing resilient, thriving communities through climate actions that prioritize justice. To prepare, please review our short Green Sanctuary 2030 Orientation Video and FAQ before the event.

The Green Sanctuary 2030 Community meets on the third Wednesday of each month at 7:00 PM ET for 90 minutes. Office Hours are on the first Wednesday of each month at 7:00 PM ET for 60 minutes.

Defending Public Lands | Standing Rock Anniversary
October 21, 2026, 7:00–8:30 PM ET, Online

The Trump administration has removed protections from more than 86 million acres of public lands, and millions more acres of our beloved landscapes and wildlife are in imminent danger from expanded mining, drilling, and timber harvests, with limited Tribal consultation and public comment. As our lands, waters, and habitats come under attack, UUs passed the 2026 AIW Defend Against the Assault on Environmental Protections: Public Lands Rules and the Endangerment Finding. As part of our Standing Rock Anniversary events, join Deb Cruz of JUUstice WA for a discussion of current issues and how we can protect public lands from logging, fossil fuel, and other extractive projects. All are invited.

Watch/Listen: Climate Justice Is Immigration Justice: Climate at the Intersections and Abolitionist Visions of Climate Justice

Together, we practice the world we long for. Together, we win.