There’s a difference between being scared and having fear. Being scared can be a motivator. It pushes you to fight back. Having fear, however, shows weakness. It shows you’re paralyzed.
This was one of the main points of Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey when he spoke in front of local leaders and community members on April 16 at the SEIU 32BJ union hall in Downtown. Alongside Congresswoman Summer Lee, Jaime Martinez from Casa San Jose, Leigh Carroll from SEIU HealthCare PA, Dena Stanley from TransYOUniting, and Pete Schmidt from SEIU 32BJ, Mayor Gainey brought the city together to talk next steps towards supporting the community amid the Trump administration’s attacks.
Over the past few months of Trump’s presidency, executive orders and businesses have both contributed to discrimination across groups such as the LGBTQIA+ community, immigrants, women, seniors, and more. To stop these acts to any extent, Mayor Gainey and Congresswoman Lee agree that the City of Pittsburgh needs to step up in all sectors, especially politically.
Immigration in Pittsburgh
A lot of the discussion centered around the topic of immigration, specifically the influx of ICE detainments. Immigrants who are living in the city, abiding by what ICE wants them to do, have continued to be disturbed by agents. In response, Mayor Gainey notes that he has pledged not to cooperate with ICE and Pittsburgh police are instructed to do the same. It’s one of the ways he is using his power to protect people.
“At the end of the day, if we don’t stand up, it’s not about what they’ll do, it’s about what we will allow them to do,” explains Mayor Gainey. “It’s not about how much trauma and terror they want to impact. It’s about how we stand up. We tell them that we are a nation of immigrants. We built America from an immigrant standpoint. So don’t come after us with ICE creating terror in the name of public safety.”
Outside of the city, Mayor Gainey has also delivered a letter to U.S. Senators Dave McCormick and John Fetterman, pressing them to reject the federal funding cut proposals to programs that the people of Pittsburgh rely on. These programs range from healthcare and education funding to non-profit funding.
One of these Pittsburgh non-profit groups is connecting directly with immigrants dealing with ICE completely free of charge. Casa San Jose has set up 24/7 hotlines and resources for community members all around the city, whether they have ICE agents showing up at their homes or even if employers have concerns about caring for their own immigrant employees. Casa San Jose Community Defense Organizer Jaime Martinez told town hall listeners about what they’ve been seeing happen as a result of Trump’s orders.
“A few weeks ago, I got a video on our emergency phone of a woman at 6 a.m. meeting with six to seven ICE agents in front of her home in the dead of night, begging them to not arrest her husband,” tells Martinez. “She was not yelling, but was frantic, frustrated, scared, terrified, telling the ICE agents in Spanish, ‘My husband has a pending asylum case. We have a lawyer. We’re doing everything you want us to do. We’re complying with what you want.’ And the way they would respond is saying, ‘We are arresting, this is an immigration arrest.’ And you start to hear small children in the background crying, yelling for their father. This is the kind of stuff that happens every day.”
Trump’s Attacks Bleed Into Other Sectors
Pete Schmidt from SEIU 32BJ is another leader who spoke about his own experiences with the unfolding of Trump’s plans. Many of the funding cuts to education, unions, and healthcare are directly affecting the organizations that actually help everyday citizens. Unfortunately, SEIU 32BJ is facing the outcomes already.
“Some of you may have seen this in the news but these funding cuts have directly impacted our bargaining at the University of Pittsburgh this year,” explains Schmidt. “We were on our way to a traditional three or four-year deal and in the 11th hour, the university came to us and said, ‘Sorry, we actually want to bargain a contract where after this year, you’re going to have a question mark for the next three years because the funding cuts are real.’ So we actually now have to go back to the bargaining table every single year until we get this funding thing situated and back to where it needs to be. That’s going to affect all of our bargaining.”
What Can You Do About Trump?
So where do we go from here? We now understand the situation and its impact on the entire Pittsburgh area, but what can we do about it? As Congresswoman Summer Lee put it, we can actually do a lot more than we may think since we have a secret superpower, a human connection with our neighbors.
“I think we have a responsibility to not be professors, but be teachers, and be able to educate people about what’s going on and resources that they may need,” says Congresswoman Lee. “If we’re not spreading the news, then we’re just as bad as the misinformation. So I encourage all of us as we leave here today to talk to a friend because they’re more open to receive you than reject you. And I believe that we have to organize something like this in another quarter because by a quarter from now, things will change. But by knowledge, we can empower the people for unprecedented unity to stand up to Donald Trump and say no more.”
With next steps presented, Jaime Martinez concluded the town hall on a more positive note by having each attendee sign a pledge to show up for their community and work to be a good neighbor. Other actionable checkpoints on their pledge sheets included joining Casa San Jose’s rapid response team and marching with them at the Steelworkers Building on May 1.
Even after all the excitement and conversation in the room, there is one quote from Congresswoman Lee on how we move on from here that sticks out the most.
“The country as we know it may never exist the way that it has,” explains Congresswoman Lee. “The reality is that the way that the country had existed was never its best form anyways and we don’t know what’s going to come next. What we do know is that something is going to come next now. I’m telling you this because there are people who are trying to write what will come next. My argument is that we should be fighting harder than they are to be the author of what is next. It’s getting built one way or another and if we are not the ones who build it, then they are building it. They will not build the society that looks like this room or that cares about what this room cares about. So, if you don’t want it to be what they want it to be, then it has to be you.”
