Inform Your Resistance

How 287(g) Expansion Fuels Mass Deportations

In this episode of Inform Your Resistance, Koki reads “Florida Is the ‘Tip of the Spear:’ How 287(g) Expansion Fuels Mass Deportations [https://live.politicalresearch.org/2025/10/06/florida-tip-spear]” by Jessica Pishko, as part of our ongoing From the Archives series. From the Archives features those must read and, now, must listen to pieces from PRA’s more than 40 years of publishing. This article was published in the Fall 2025 issue of The Public Eye magazine. Resources * "The Unchecked Power Of Sheriffs [https://www.npr.org/2024/09/10/1198684058/the-unchecked-power-of-sheriffs]," Fresh Air, 2024.

The New Frontlines of Trump’s Immigration Crackdown

How is ICE mobilizing on our streets today? What role does local law enforcement play in Trump’s immigration crackdown? And what are local organizers doing about it? This episode is guest hosted by Cloee Cooper, PRA Research Director and host of The Insurgence: Sheriffs [https://politicalresearch.org/the-insurgence-sheriffs], a podcast series that uncovers how a national network of far-right sheriffs is mobilizing to create a White Christian republic, one county at a time. This episode features Felicia Arriaga, Jessica Pishko, and Camilo Garzón. Felicia Arriaga, who is featured in episode four of The Insurgence: Sheriffs [https://politicalresearch.org/2024/10/24/what-is-FAIR], is the author of Behind Crimmigration: ICE, Law Enforcement, and Resistance in America. Felicia is also a former fellow with PRA. Jessica Pishko, who is featured in episode six of The Insurgence: Sheriffs [https://politicalresearch.org/2024/10/31/stop-steal] is a lawyer and journalist. She's the author of the recently released book, The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy. Camilo Garzón is an award-winning Colombian American writer, filmmaker, documentarian, and journalist. He is the founder of Cuentero Productions which produced The Insurgence: Sheriffs. Episode Resources * The Insurgence: Sheriffs [https://politicalresearch.org/the-insurgence-sheriffs] on PRA Presents, wherever you get your podcasts * Pishko, Jessica. “Florida Is the ‘Tip of the Spear’: How 287(g) Expansion Fuels Mass Deportations [https://politicalresearch.org/2025/10/06/florida-tip-spear],” The Public Eye, 2025.

Coalitions and Contradictions between Capitalist and Far Right Agendas with Hialy Gutierrez and Claudia Espinel

In this episode, Hialy Gutierrez, PRA Deputy Research Director, and Claudia Espinel, discuss the connections and contradictions between prevailing economic systems, political infrastructure and ideology, and rising authoritarianism. We touch on the various ways that corporate power intersects with government, civil society, and media to prioritize profit accumulation and market dominance over human and environmental dignity and wellbeing. We also identify ways to sharpen movement strategy so that we can more effectively and more coherently fight back, not just against authoritarian leaders and governance, but also against the economic systems that keep enabling them. We highlight the urgent need to combine our narrative strategies to combat the spread of far right ideology with a clear, materialist strategy to build alternative economic systems. Hialy Gutierrez is the Deputy Research Director at Political Research Associates, where she supports researchers in grounding and testing their analyses in a political economy strategic framework. She is also a cooperator in the solidarity economy ecosystem in Chicago; a PhD candidate and Fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she explores strategic relationships and possibilities across grassroots movements, state institutions, and alternative institutions; and a steering member of the NY-DSA political education academy where she helps to advance education on different expressions of socialism.  Claudia works as a consultant for the new Corporate Rights portfolio and political economy at PRA. After spending 15 years in organizational development for both for-profit and non-profit organizations, Claudia joined the PhD program in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago as a student. Her research focuses on the role of labor in neoliberalism and the forces and dynamics that create the conditions for labor exploitation. Claudia’s main research interests include non-extractive labor, cooperative governance, and democratic workplaces. She served as the research manager for the Community Wealth Building Project, a City of Chicago initiative that supports cooperative development. She also works on political education projects within Chicago’s worker cooperative ecosystem and has experience in building structures and processes to institutionalize democratized economic governance. Resources * Media Justice. https://mediajustice.org/ [https://mediajustice.org/]  * Rashid, Qasim, Esq. “Corporate Media Is Capitulating to Trump [https://www.qasimrashid.com/p/corporate-media-is-capitulating-to],” Let's Address This with Qasim Rashid, 2025.  * Torres-Spelliscy, Ciara. Corporatocracy: How to Protect Democracy from Dark Money and Corrupt Politicians. NYU Press, 2024. * Cooper, Cloee. “ What Is Movement Infrastructure? How Movements Sustain Us Amid Rising Authoritarianism [https://politicalresearch.org/2024/12/13/what-movement-infrastructure],” The Public Eye, 2024.

“It's Never Just About Gender”: Gender and Authoritarianism: PRA Analyzes Trump 2.0’s First 100 Days, Part 2

This episode is the second in PRA’s panel discussion series, The First 100 Days of Authoritarian Gains: Key Analysis to Inform Our Resistance. This second part discusses how MAGA weaponizes gender to entrench authoritarianism. Looking at the essential role that anti-LGBTQ, particularly anti-trans organizing and policy and anti-reproductive healthcare access and abortion restriction play in reinforcing authoritarian norms and politics. Research Analysts, Annie Wilkinson, Chancie Calliham, and Mary Reynolds are joined by reproductive justice movement leader Norbese Flint, for this focused discussion of the ways that gender and bodies are reified restricted and deployed by the U.S. Right to reinforce the cis-hetero Christian patriarchal norms that are essential to the authoritarian state making project both in the United States and abroad. They conclude their discussion with a clear call to action that defending reproductive and LGBTQ rights and flourishing are essential to the work of resistance and provide key insights into how to do this extraordinarily necessary work. The discussion is inspired by PRAs recent Winter Spring 2025, issue of the Public Eye on gender and authoritarianism. Resources * Gardiner, Steven. “Authoritarians Must Break Your Will to Resist — So What Can You Do About It? [https://religiondispatches.org/authoritarians-must-break-your-will-to-resist-so-what-can-you-do-about-it/]” Religion Dispatches, 2024. * Gardiner, Steven, and Tarso Luís Ramos. “Capitol Offenses: January 6th 2021 & The Ongoing Insurrection [https://politicalresearch.org/2022/01/12/capitol-offenses-january-6th-2021-ongoing-insurrection].” Political Research Associates. * Political Research Associates. “Trump 2.0’s First 100 Days: Authoritarian Gains and Consolidation. [https://politicalresearch.org/2025/06/12/trump-20s-first-100-days]” The Public Eye, 2025. * Ramos, Tarso Luís, and Kathryn Joyce. “One Year In: A Q&A with Tarso Luís Ramos on Trump’s First Year in Office [https://politicalresearch.org/2018/01/19/one-year-in-a-qa-with-tarso-luis-ramos].” The Public Eye, 2018. * Wilkinson, Annie, and Mary Reynolds, with Nourbese Flint. “Authoritarianism, Criminalization, and Reproductive Injustice: A Roundtable Discussion [http://politicalresearch.org/2025/03/12/authoritarianism-criminalization-and-reproductive-injustice].” The Public Eye, 2025.

Lifting the Curtain on Antisemitism—Episode 1: What is Antisemitism and its Weaponization? A Conversation for Movement Organizers with Shoshana Brown and Ben Lorber

Inform Your Resistance is coming to you this week in between regularly scheduled episodes to introduce you to a new podcast series, Lifting the Curtain on Antisemitism [https://politicalresearch.org/lifting-curtain-antisemitism]. This collaboration between Political Research Associates [https://politicalresearch.org/] and Diaspora Alliance [https://diasporaalliance.co/] explores how to understand antisemitism and its weaponization and to fight for collective liberation. Amidst rising authoritarianism and Israel’s genocide in Gaza, this series offers a rigorous analysis of how authoritarians uses antisemitism and its weaponization as a tool to repress progressive movements and to dismantle democracy itself. You can find all six episodes of Lifting the Curtain on Antisemitism on the PRA Presents feed wherever you get your podcasts or on politicalresearch.org [https://politicalresearch.org/lifting-curtain-antisemitism].