The path to liberation does not go through comfort. That has always been true.
In some accounts, as Pharaoh’s army pursued Moses into the Red Sea, a tribesman had to wade almost up to his chin in the raging waters before Moses raised his staff and the sea split in two.
Despite not knowing how to swim, Harriet Tubman dove into the canals of Maryland’s Eastern Shore to help others escape their slavery.
With their eyes fixed on clubs and snarling dogs, John Lewis and the marchers gathered their strength to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River.
They all threw themselves into the dangerous and uncertain waters, literal or metaphorical, with the faith that they would gain their freedom. Activist April Albright of Black Voters Matters has a phrase for taking this step: go all out.
In this moment of national memory, 161 years after Union troops arrived in Galveston to share long-overdue news of emancipation, I think about the question Sister April asks of these stories: Are we, too, people up to our necks?
June 16 They are a complicated vacation. It is a celebration of Black liberation and resilience. It is also a reminder that no victory in the fight for freedom is permanent. Perhaps, above all, it is a call to a nation with a divided soul to ask ourselves what the path to liberation looks like today and what it takes to follow it.
Lately, however, it seems the road is becoming more treacherous. Seemingly every day, we witness bold and clever new ways to dispossess black and brown people. We see it in the backlash against affirmative action and equal employment opportunity. We see it in the recent Supreme Court decision that cleared the way for Republicans to manipulate communities to take away their votes. We see it in rising health disparities, the new segregation of schools, and a frayed social safety net. And we see it in a country that, as it approaches its 250th anniversary, still lives in the shadows of racism, shadows that grow deeper and wider as this president appeals to a vision of America in which belonging is about blood and soil.
An example as urgent and painful as any other is how donald trump has marshaled the full force of the federal government to terrorize and brutalize communities of color, including our immigrant communities. At its core, Juneteenth teaches us that liberation must include everyone, not just those who fit the people in power’s idea of what it means to be an American.
These are the raging waters of our moment, and I have found myself more than up to my neck.
It’s not a battle I sought. I would be the first to admit that I didn’t know much about federal immigration policy when I came to Congress. But it’s the battle that found me. And it’s worth fighting for.
When Donald Trump returned to power, the first immigration detention center he opened was right in the heart of the New Jersey district that I represent in the United States Congress. is called Delaney Halland it’s probably the closest you can get to hell on earth. The stench is overwhelming. The interior is dark and narrow. Gasps and sobs echo in the hallways, people begging to see their families again, to speak to a lawyer. There is hardly any smell of food, and I have been told that the little food served to detainees is moldy, green, and full of live worms. The detainees report that the guards beat them and sprayed them with pepper spray. A 41-year-old Haitian died in ICE custody just one day after arriving in Delaney last year.
The people inside Delaney Hall have desperately blamed me for their cases. The vast, vast majority of them have no criminal record and many were following the legal processes to remain in this country when they were detained. However, hundreds of people are held hostage and forced to suffer as understaffed and overwhelmed immigration courts scramble to resolve a growing backlog of cases.
I have entered many times and I am always shaking to my core. You can’t help but wonder: if this isn’t torture, what is it then?
Delaney Hall is located in the heart of my community, one of the least wealthy districts in the country and made up of mostly black and brown families, with almost a third of our neighbors born outside the country. It is precisely the type of community this administration is targeting, precisely the type of community they want to fear.
Masked men without license plates pass by in vans. Neighbors disappear from their own entrances. The pepper spray is wielded at point-blank range. It has created an atmosphere of palpable fear that has forced parents to skip work shifts, stay home and miss doctor’s appointments, or stretch shopping for food, medicine and diapers from a week to two or three.
One thing you should know about me: I am fiercely protective of my people. Maybe it’s being the oldest daughter and helping raise my siblings, or being a mother. But if you come through my community, you will respond to me.
So when we learned of the atrocities committed at Delaney Hall, I did what I’m supposed to do as a member of Congress. I went to see for myself what the Trump administration was doing in our name and with our tax dollars.
What should have been a brief, peaceful congressional oversight visit (members of Congress have the explicit legal right to visit detention centers without notice) quickly devolved into ICE-manufactured chaos.
After an agent at Delaney Hall received orders from then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (whom Trump has since tapped to lead the Justice Department), armed and masked ICE agents pushed through the crowd and began pushing and shoving so they could arrest Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. Days later, the administration filed criminal charges against me for that confrontation.
Today I face up to 17 years in prison for crimes I did not commit.
Why press charges to persecute me? Why did ICE tell so many lies that a federal judge said they should stop? They are not trying to punish me for what I did; They are trying to punish me for what I believe, for what I have said, and for doing my job. It was shocking, but it shouldn’t have been surprising.
On top of all that, we know that Trump is no stranger to attacking black women. And those attacks take a real toll. They can drain you of your financial resources, not to mention your energy and joy. Many nights I lie awake thinking about how this terrible experience torments the people I love. My mother is very worried about the death threats. My husband is on edge while I am involved in court. My 10 year old daughter is afraid of losing her mom. I’m worried about what it means for all of them (and the baby I’m carrying right now) that I may be gone for 17 years.
But here’s what I know: my processing is about much more than just me. It’s about the 800,000 people who sent me to Congress to be their voice. When I walk into a courtroom, or walk down the House floor, or visit somewhere like Delaney Hall, I’m not just there as LaMonica. I am there as an elected representative of my community, the place where I grew up, the people I have known my entire life. I am there on behalf of Black and Brown families, people who have been terrorized by ICE, people whose lives have been made worse by this administration. So when this administration tries to criminalize the performance of my job – tries to silence me, deprive me of financial resources and drown me in legal proceedings – it is not just taking down one person. They are trying to exert dominance over an entire community, one that doesn’t look or think like them. It’s Jim Crow resurrected, in unmarked cars, marble hallways, false accusations and legal briefs.
These efforts to intimidate will not end my case. If they can make an example of me, then they can intimidate more elected leaders (or anyone) into submission. This is how they accumulate more power and return people who do not look like or think like them to their place, which is the goal of their political project.
That is nothing new in our country. In fact, for most of our history, people in power had no reason to care about people like the ones I represent. But the brute force of the polls has made them worry. That is why my legal fight is also a fight for the most powerful resource that the dispossessed have at their disposal: democracy itself. And I think that’s worth fighting for.
For what it’s worth, black women have always known this. We have never had the luxury of taking democracy for granted. That’s why we’ve always addressed the gaps: for our families, our communities, and for each other, too. Go to any protest. We are on the front line. Check any choices. We vote, we organize, we show up. Because we know exactly what is at stake.
The purpose of this administration in imposing so much suffering on us, in keeping our feet on our necks, is to make us feel afraid. That terror is your most powerful weapon. Many of us have lived it.
But the road to freedom has never been easy. That is the story of our nation’s 250-year history. When our founders challenged a formidable empire, when slaves threw off the yoke of tyranny, when suffragists gathered at Seneca Falls, when young people flocked to Selma and Stonewall, Ferguson and Lafayette Square, they had no idea if, when or how final victory would be won. They simply had faith that the first step was the right one and they kept walking.
You don’t have to be black or brown to realize that our nation is moving backwards on the path to freedom. But our communities feel it in our bones. What was once hidden in dog whistles is now shouted in our faces. What was once buried in statutes is now openly declared as the law of the land.
In this difficult time, Juneteenth reminds us that freedom never comes overnight and is never permanent. For every step forward, we are dragged half a step back. But that doesn’t mean we stop walking.
We are not called to certainty, we are called to courage. It is what this moment demands of all of us. Our freedom depends on it. We don’t have to know how we will cross the sea before diving in up to our necks.
We just need to have faith that the first step is the right one and keep walking. Because we know this: Raging waters have parted before, but never for those who stayed on the shore.
Monica McIver faces 17 years in prison for a supervisory visit to the Delaney Hall ICE detention center in his hometown of Newark, New Jersey. Since their initial supervision visit, detainees at Delaney Hall have cited inadequate food and medical treatment, neglect and abuse as reasons for mounting a hunger strike. McIver has continued to monitor the facility even as his case remains ongoing. She will appear in federal court this month to argue that the administration cannot prosecute her for doing her job. She is from Newark, New Jersey, and represents New Jersey’s 10th congressional district. She is pregnant with her second child.
