ICE is breaking records and Democrats are breaking down.

Friends,

Let’s be honest about where we are.

This week, ICE detention numbers just hit a record high : over 56,000 people locked up. The vast majority with no criminal record, some even deported despite being U.S. citizens.

And active-duty troops are still occupying Los Angeles with no plans to leave. 

Not to keep peace. Not because protests have escalated. But because Donald Trump has decided this city, our neighbors, are the “enemy within.”

This is authoritarianism through and through. 

And if the last few weeks have proven anything, it’s that the Democratic Party isn’t equipped to stop it. 

Because they refuse to name it. Because they helped build it.

ICE was created with bipartisan support. Funded under Republican and Democratic administrations. Expanded under Bush. Supercharged under Obama. Given legal cover by Clinton-era laws. 

Every step of the way, there were Democrats willing to rationalize it. To vote yes. To say “now is not the time” while communities were being disappeared.

Now, even as Trump openly defies court orders, even as federal agents arrest sitting members of Congress, the response from the old guard has been silence or paperwork. 

Chuck Schumer took two weeks to send a polite letter after Senator Padilla was manhandled by Trump’s DHS in broad daylight. 

That’s the plan?

No wonder sixty-five percent of Democratic voters want new leadership. It’s not because they’ve given up on democracy. 

Because “strategic patience” isn’t a plan when your community is under siege

We don’t need more excuses. We need an opposition that won’t flinch. 

That’s why we’re running with the Green Party—because we never voted to fund ICE, we never made excuses for detention quotas, and we sure as hell won’t stand down while military troops occupy our cities.

When elected governor, I will move to cancel all state and local cooperation with ICE, end data sharing with DHS, and turn California into a sanctuary in practice, not just in name. 

No more loopholes. No more two-faced talking points. Just a clear commitment to protecting every Californian from political terror.

The troops are here. The raids are escalating. And the old solutions are still failing. If you’re ready to stop repeating history, help us organize the future.

Peace and Power,

Butch Ware