r/TheDefianceDispatch

Over the last 24 hours, we’ve learned via local activists and independent journalist Nick Valencia that approximately 20 detainees being held at the notorious Adelanto ICE Processing Center are on a hunger strike. In their press release, they reported already being in poor health and underfed due to staff neglect, and are demanding due process, bond reform, improved conditions, adequate medical and mental health care, decent food, accountability for deaths at the facility and the right to organize and communicate.

At least four people - Ismael Ayala-Uribe, Gabriel Garcia-Aviles, Alberto Gutierrez Reyes and Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano - have died while being held at this GEO Group-run detention camp in San Bernadino County, California since September, with multiple accusations of staff denying folks necessary medical care. Detainees have reported physical and sexual abuse, said they’ve been refused a change of clothes, underwear or towels, and advocates have reported inadequate access to clean food and water and other unsafe and unsanitary conditions. It’s been the subject of multiple federal investigations and civil rights lawsuits, and the California Attorney General’s office has found staffing has failed to keep up with the growing number of detainees.

Families of migrants held at Adelanto and advocates are holding a virtual press conference tomorrow, May 20th, at 10AM ET/7AM PT. We’re being asked to help get more coverage of this hunger strike and detainees’ demand for the center to be shut down. Let’s do our part! We can reach out to local outlets to urge them to cover this protest, such as:

·       Los Angeles Times here or at tips@latimes.com

·       CalMatters at 916-502-9986 or tips@calmatters.org

·       KCAL (CBS affiliate) here, at kcalkcbsdesk@cbs.com or at 818-221-2222

·       KNBC (NBC affiliate) here

·       KMEX (Univision affiliate) here

·       KABC (ABC affiliate) here or at 877-777-6397

·       KVEA (local Telemundo affiliate) here

One year ago: May 15, 2025 - U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS. Here’s the full 4-minute clip on YouTube: “If You Sit Back And Do Nothing, They Will Take It All.” - Sen. Sanders On America’s Oligarchy - The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. More clips of Bernie (from this interview) are on Colbert’s YouTube channel.

AOC is US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) - May 8, 2026. Here’s the full 5-minutes on YouTube: We need to Abolish ICE. | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (YouTube)

From the description: We need to abolish ICE. What does it cost our humanity to look the other way when women, children, and young men of promise are ripped off the street and disappeared? What does it cost us as a society to normalize looking the other way to such barbarism?

Here are the latest r/EyesOnIce posts with: A O C ~:~ Abolish ICE ~:~ Disappeared ~:~ Children ~:~ Cruelty ~:~ Stephen Miller

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What is it costing us — as Human Beings and as a Society — to look the other way, when Women, and Children, and innocent People, and young Men of promise, are ripped off the street, and thrown into a van, and disappeared, and you never see them again?

There's what that costs them. But think about what it costs you, to look the other way.

What does it cost us, as a Society that starts to normalize looking the other way?

Then we start looking the other way, as Women bleed-out in parking lots in States that have banned abortion.

We start looking the other way, as VRA Districts start to get stripped out of our Congress.

We start looking the other way, as the Free Press becomes consumed and intimidated by the very Powers that they exist to check.

What does it cost us — and you, as a Human Being — to look the other way?

And so, there's the economic cost. Your healthcare is going up. Long-term care for our Parents and Grandparents are gonna skyrocket. It's gonna cost us. It's already costing us.

And then there’s, what does it cost our Soul? And that, you know, in a political context, People think that that's naive flowery talk. I don't think it is. Because what is all of this for, if it is not to live a dignified Life, in a Community and Country of integrity?

- US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (May 2026)

L.A. TACO - May 18, 2026. If you’d like to donate to VCDefensa: vcdefensa.org/donate

Here’s the video on:

* L.A. TACO’s website (article + video): Daily Memo: Hunger Strikes Begin in California ICE Detention Centers as Conditions Worsen - May 18, 2026 (L.A. TACO website)

* YouTube: Daily Memo: Hunger Strikes Begin in California ICE Detention Centers as Conditions Worsen - L.A. TACO - May 18, 2026 (YouTube)

From the description:

Today is Monday, May 18th, Day 347, and these are your updates on the ICE siege, which, yes, is still ongoing.

Less than a week after ICE raided the homes of people associated with VCDefensa, the community watch group that’s been legally observing and warning their communities of ICE’s presence in the 805 area s, ICE is now heavily targeting those areas, beginning with Oxnard, and taking people from their vehicles.

The attack on VCDefensa comes days after the White House published Trump’s “Counterterrorism Strategy,” in which he includes “violent left-wing extremists, including anarchists and anti-fascists” as a threat to the U.S.

Trump declares that Americans who oppose his fascist administration will face a very fascist response, writing, “We Will Find You, and We Will Kill You.”

To do that, Trump is using Palantir’s advanced AI surveillance firm to gather data on all Americans, including the IRS, Health and Human Services, DHS, and other agencies, to centralize, compile, and create a mass database that can easily track people in the U.S., including its citizens.

Trump has now agreed to a settlement with an IRS commissioner he can fire and an acting attorney general who wants a nomination to drop his $10 billion lawsuit in exchange for a $1.7 billion slush fund to "compensate" the henchmen who committed crimes for his benefit. This could include the nearly 1,600 people charged with attacking the Capitol to overturn the results of the election on January 6th.

This is a theft from the American taxpayers, playing out right in the open. The White House is going to use our money to pay off himself and the thugs who committed political violence on his behalf. There will certainly be legal challenges ahead, but as Rep. Jamie Raskin has pointed out Congress has power over spending, which means they can stop it from going forward... and if they don't, it's because their members/leadership are making a choice to allow it. 🗣️ Let’s reach out to our reps and demand they prevent a single penny of our money from being used for Trump’s slump fund. We can find scripts and email language to use here, or text SIGN PMLDMK to 50409 to send this message directly via Resistbot. 🗣️

Also in today's List:

• Condemn Colorado Governor Jared Polis for his decision to commute the sentence of one of the last coup co-conspirators facing consequences
• Even as opposition on Capitol Hill inches forward, Trump is threatening to escalate again in Iran – tell reps it’s time to shut this down, help Indivisible drive calls to Congress, make opposition visible
• Ready to organize tenants in your community? Apply for TUF’s Union School by June 15th
• This week’s judges to thank
• Georgians go to the polls with a chance to unseat two conservative supreme court justices TOMORROW - phonebank to get it done today at 12PM and 6PM and throughout the day Tuesday! Plus learn how we can help pass a new challenge to Citizens United in Montana at 7PM ET and how to organize a freedom vigil at a detention site at 8PM ET

May 18, 2026 - NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks in the South Bronx at the future site of one of NYC’s first city-run grocery stores. These grocery stores will offer affordable options for local Residents.

Video by Daily Kos - May 18, 2026. Here it is on YouTube: NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani mocks Ronald Reagan and conservatives while launching new grocery stores - Daily Kos - May 18, 2026 (YouTube)

Here’s an article from the NYC Mayor’s Office website: Mayor Mamdani Announces the Peninsula in the Bronx as the Second Site for City’s Public Grocery Stores - NYC Mayor’s Office - May 18, 2026

Here’s info on the “N.Y.C. Groceries” program: edc.nyc/program/nyc-groceries

.........

I cannot help but think of the words of our 40th president, Ronald Reagan. He famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

It's a good quote, but I disagree. I think nine more terrifying words are actually: “I worked all day and can't feed my Family.”

We are going to use the power of government to lower prices, and make it easier for New Yorkers to put Food on the table.

When government understands its purpose — as serving the very Working People that it has left behind, time and again — it can make a difference in the most pressing struggles facing our City today.

It's not just that government can help. It’s that government must help. And our government will help.

- NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, speaking in the South Bronx at the future site of one of NYC’s first city-run grocery stores