Meeting the moment

 

In the early hours of the morning, ICE comes.

They arrive at homes and businesses, pulling people from their lives. Parents. Workers. Neighbors. The targets are often long-time residents—some without legal standing, yes, but many with temporary protections or pending cases. Some were even given visas under specialized programs.

Take the Cubans. For decades, they had a clear path to legal status under the Cuban Adjustment Act. That’s gone now.

Or the Haitians—500,000 people with Temporary Protected Status, now told to pack up and leave.

Or Mexicans, who are facing targeted round-ups in neighborhoods across the country by masked men with no warrants. We are getting reports that children are being held without enough water and food, that citizens are being caught in the net. The cruelty is accelerating.

Let’s be clear: speaking out against ICE raids is not just about immigration. It’s about civil rights. It’s about who gets to be safe in this country, and who the Constitution protects. The very pillars of our democracy—freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom from unlawful detention—are under attack.

This moment demands moral clarity. It demands courage. It demands leadership.

And there are women of color showing us what that looks like.

They’re not waiting for party leaders to catch up or give permission. They see that many of those in power are simply not prepared to meet this moment. And so, they rise.

Congresswomen like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Delia Ramirez and Jasmine Crockett.

Mayors like Karen Bass in Los Angeles and Barbara Lee in Oakland, who has stood for peace and justice across decades of shifting political winds.

Like New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is taking on unlawful executive actions aimed at dismantling federal agencies and is leading a group of states’ Attorney Generals who are suing to challenge the administration’s attack on birthright citizenship. Remember that AG James was first elected to the New York City Council as a member of the Working Families Party and is now one of the most consequential and courageous defenders of the rule of law.

And we have to look for emerging leaders on the horizon who are uniquely qualified to stand up against fascism and to stand for values of democracy and equality. The leaders of the moment are deeply tied to movements and to moral culture. They are moving in new ways because the rules have changed.  

These women are not isolated figures. They are part of a larger tradition—a deep, often under-recognized lineage of women of color who have led through crisis, contradiction, and chaos. They stand rooted in community. They carry the weight of history. And they lead with clarity because they know what’s at stake.

What we’re seeing now is not just a political crisis—it’s a test of who we are as a nation. And in moments like this, true leaders don’t posture. They act.

They speak truth when silence is easier.

They gather coalitions when others shrink into corners.

They call us to remember what justice looks like, even as the lights flicker and the headlines shift.

Leadership today means standing in the gap between what is and what must be.

It means calling out cruelty.

It means protecting each other.

It means seeing the connections—between immigration raids and civil rights rollbacks, between the struggle for reproductive freedom and the fight for voting rights.

It means refusing to look away.

Women of color are showing us how it’s done. And we need to listen, support, and follow their lead—because they are lighting the path forward.