They Are Not “Illegal.” They Are Us.

What ICE raids, Trump’s provocation, and spiritual nonviolence reveal about the soul of our democracy

Jun 09, 2025

There are moments when the soul of a nation is laid bare.

We call these moments unrest, crisis, or disorder. But often, they are moments of revelation.

In retrospect, they become the highlights that define a decade, images that live in our memory and our textbooks. And more importantly, they become turning points: not just for how the moment was handled, but for how a people chose to respond.

“There are no permanent victims—only co-creators of our collective experience.”

The Civil Rights Movement had such moments. The LGBTQ+ rights movement had such moments. And American democracy is in one of those moments now.

The Violence They Want You to See

Perhaps you remember where you were when (either through history class or lived experience) you first saw the footage from the Edmund Pettus Bridge—peaceful marchers in Selma being brutalized by police batons. Or the photos from Birmingham, where Black children were blasted by firehoses and chased by dogs.

Those images shook the public out of apathy. They stirred a moral conscience, and they revealed just how far the nation had to go to become what it said it was.

We are in such a moment again.

The ICE raids currently underway in Los Angeles are not just policy enforcement. They are acts of state violence. Deliberate. Dehumanizing. Designed to provoke.

And this Administration is counting on that provocation to spiral into something they can use. They want it to get ugly. They want violence. They want it televised.

“By militarizing the situation in L.A., Trump is goading Americans more generally to take him on in the streets of their own cities, thus enabling his attacks on their constitutional freedoms. As I’ve listened to him and his advisers over the past several days, they seem almost eager for public violence that would justify the use of armed force against Americans.” - Tom Nichols, Trump Is Using the National Guard as Bait, The Atlantic

Why? Because then they can invoke the language of “law and order” to consolidate more power, justify more force, and distract from the real crisis of human rights and democracy unraveling. This is not “leftist-conspiracy” - its all written down.

No, I’m Not Asking You to Be Calm

Let me be absolutely clear: I am not asking anyone to calm down, stay quiet, or be “respectful.” That tone, too often offered by well-meaning white moderates, is out of touch at best, dangerous at worst.

“Respectability politics won’t protect anyone from state violence.”

Communities are being surveilled, scapegoated, and torn apart. People are angry. They should be.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said:

“A riot is the language of the unheard.”

That doesn’t mean we condone destruction. But it does mean we understand where the rage is coming from—and we must listen. We must understand how dangerous this moment is. How critical our engagement and response is. All the more reason for precision and strategy not unleashed chaos.

This moment calls for strategic nonviolent resistance on a massive scale.

Nonviolence Is Not Passivity

I’m a pacifist—but pacifism is not passive.

Dr. King didn’t just preach nonviolence. He practiced it. He trained for it. He studied Mahatma Gandhi, walked with Thich Nhat Hanh, and understood that nonviolence was not weakness.

It was spiritual discipline.

It was strategic resistance.

It was radical power.

We must remind ourselves of the power that nonviolence has to overcome this moment. Nonviolence in the face of evil, serves to expose evil. It draws it out. It strips away its legitimacy. And when the mask is gone, and the cruelty is laid bare—hearts change. Pressure builds. Movements grow.

The Authoritarian Playbook

If we respond with violence, we give them the justification they’re waiting for.

They’ll frame it as terrorism. They’ll crack down harder. They’ll sell that crackdown as “security.” That’s the the old authoritarian playbook:

Provoke → Frame → Escalate → Consolidate Power.

It’s a trap. And the only way out is to refuse the bait.

We need clarity, not chaos.

Revolution, not riots.

Liberation, not reaction.

A Spiritual Shift: The Drama Triangle to Liberation

Viewed through a spiritual and liberation lens, we see a deeper pattern playing out—one modeled in the Karpman Drama Triangle.

The “victim”
The “persecutor”
The “rescuer/hero”

This dynamic plays out again and again in our public discourse. But what if we stepped outside that triangle?

If we adopt the Liberation Lens, a framework that begins with the idea that Consciousness is Everything, we stop seeing people as stuck in these roles and we shift how we engage in them.

There are no permanent victims—only co-creators of our shared reality.
No fixed persecutors—only provocations that invite deeper insight so that we might see the hidden causes of our troubles.
No savior heroes—only servants of wholeness building a world that works for all.

“Liberation begins when we stop reacting and start seeing with new eyes.”

The Hard Truth About Immigration in America

When we shift out of the drama triangle - we liberate our consciousness into a new way of seeing. One that can embrace and confront the harder realities under the surface of shallow “us vs them” narratives.

America has always had a complicated relationship with immigrants—especially those labeled “illegal.” But that label is a political weapon, not a moral truth. It’s a label rooted in political convenience. These individuals are easy targets for the deeper failures of our society—failures to create an economy that works for everyone, a healthcare system that heals everyone, a democracy that protects everyone.

These individuals are not the crisis—they are the reminder of the crisis we’ve refused to address.

A crisis of economic inequality.
A broken health system.
A democracy still riddled with exclusion.

It’s easier to criminalize the reminder than to admit the failure.

They are not some foreign “other.” They are neighbors, coworkers, classmates, and caretakers. They work hard. They dream big. They sacrifice for their families. They strive in ways that often put many of us to shame.

And they contribute—economically, culturally, spiritually. Undocumented immigrants contribute more than $90 billion annually in state and federal taxes through the goods and services they purchase.

That’s 90 BILLION in revenue contributions into a system they do not benefit from, but YOU DO.

These people are only “alien” because we have forgotten that we were once them.

Their labor is essential. Their presence is stabilizing. They are not a burden—they are the backbone of an economy that would otherwise collapse without them.

This administration targets them because their striving reminds them of how far we’ve fallen short in making America great for everyone.

This Is Our Pettus Bridge Moment

How we respond now matters.

Will we take the bait and escalate, or will we step into the fierce and focused power of spiritual nonviolence?

Will we demonize and divide, or will we rise and unite?

The choice is not between calm and chaos.
The choice is between reaction and revolution.

This is a moment that will be written into history.

We must not shrink back. We must not mirror the hatred. We must not fall into the trap of rage turned reckless. Instead, we must rise with disciplined defiance. We must show up in the streets, in courtrooms, in town halls, in sanctuaries—with love, yes, but also with strategy. With wisdom. With a refusal to let our pain be weaponized against us.

This is the time to call upon the wisdom of our ancestors and way showers who have gone before us in the fight for human dignity. There was something so simple about the sanitation workers strike, the one Dr. King participated in just before his assassination. The men on the picket line wore board signs that said:

“I AM A MAN.”

A simple declaration of humanity, in the face of inhuman policy. Just to read it forced ones conscience to reckone with the dissonance created by any idea one held that said otherwise.

That’s our job in this moment. To hold the mirror up to those who insist on inhuman policy and practices and force the moral reckoning within.

What we do now will echo. It will be written into the next chapter of our shared story. Let it be said that we rose with moral courage. That we answered cruelty with conviction. That we met force with a power far greater.

Let’s make sure it’s a moment we can be proud of.

📣

You can take action:

Join local nonviolent protests No King Day - June 14, 2025
Support immigration defense funds like RAICES or Immigrant Defenders Law Center
Read and share the teachings of Dr. King, Gandhi, and Thich Nhat Hanh;
Take a nonviolence training course at The King Center

Rev. David Alexander D.D. is the spiritual director of the of Spiritual Living Center of Atlanta, author of Freedom from Discord: The Promise of New Thought Liberation Theology and Recovery from the Lie of Whiteness. David writes a monthly column, Philosophy In Action in Science of Mind Magazine.

Thanks for reading The Liberation Lens! This post is public so feel free to share it.