Organizing: ACLU People Power

cattitude and I just got home from an Arlington meeting for the livestream/beginning to do stuff of the ACLU's "People Power" grassroots initiative. (Yes, a national organization trying to organize a grassroots anything is weird, but we have information on getting stuff done at the city, town, or county level.) The first project is to try to get local law enforcement not to cooperate with ICE, with specifics on what to do and not do, that apparently were developed by ACLU lawyers working with police chiefs and such.

There's a proposal to make Arlington a sanctuary town on the next town meeting agenda; someone at the meeting is going to get in touch with the state ACLU to see whether he should try to get the proposal amended, or whether it's close enough. Someone else is going to be contacting the attorney general, I think to ask what the state is doing (I've forgotten the details, so I'm glad it's not my task). We might also be calling the Middlesex County sheriff to ask about the pieces of this enforcement thing that are relevant to his job.* It was good to talk to other locals who want to do something, and we have another meeting scheduled in a few weeks. (This was one of at least three events in Arlington, so we may wind up coordinating, or people who went to this meeting may go to the next meeting of one of them, or vice versa.)

I was surprised to see Cyd (WINOLJ/DW) there; she said she hadn't been able to find a Belmont meeting, and left when we got into discussing Arlington-specific plans.

Side note: the host offered tea (several choices of tea, and a proper electric kettle), but when I asked about milk and sugar had only hemp milk, so I tried it, and didn't like it at all (unlike soy milk). I gave up on that and had iced tea instead, for the caffeine.

*I gather that in most of Massachusetts, the sheriff's job is only to run and set policy for the county jail, so "don't turn people over to ICE or ask about immigration status" is relevant, but reminding them about the importance of warrants isn't.