In Detroit, hundreds of people have come together to form a “People’s Assembly” to discuss how to defend against ICE. In attendance were immigrants, teachers, students, workers of all stripes, and different groups on the left. During the assembly, the whole collective debated several strategies of how to push back on ICE, and then made decisions to take action. Since then, these hundreds of people have been meeting and continuing to democratically carry out the strategies and tactics. This united front assembly is an important example of self-organization in motion.

One of the things that is heartening about this experience is that there is a group of people who are committed to strengthening the democratic and independent character of the assembly. They not only understand the power of uniting the different tendencies of the Left, the union movement, and community forces, but understand that if this power is to continue, it has to be controlled by the movement itself. We should be wary of and push back against the co-optive tactics of the Democrats and the bureaucracies of the institutional nonprofits and unions who are subordinated to the Democrats.