Submitted anonymously to Meridian Verso

For Mapache, the Autonomous Brown Berets, Cody, Sharti, and everyone who laughed, cried, and fought at Camp Cicada.

Introduction

On June 17^th of 2018, anti-ICE protesters began an occupation outside of their local ICE headquarters in Portland Oregon. Hundreds of people brought tents, chairs, food, and proletarian fury as they were spurred by Trump’s zero-tolerance policies against Latinx immigrants entering the United States. Tensions grew between the protesters and ICE until fights broke out, protesters were then arrested, and vicious attacks were carried out by far-right nationalists. Shortly afterwards, OCCUPY ICE PDX sent out a call to action to any grassroots organizers to begin their own occupations in their cities on the one month anniversary and an Autonomous Brown Beret, Mapache as we called him, heard and answered the call. 

Mapache and I, who go by the name Tecolote or ‘Teco’ for short, are both members of the Autonomous Brown Berets de San Anto TejAztlan. The occupation began, not as an occupation but rather as a vigil and protest against the violent mistreatment of immigrants at the southern U.S. border. An activist who went by the name Cody and I began discussing the feasibility of having a large-scale occupation in a city like San Antonio, a city where even the most radical of protesters always make sure to get a permit first, and what are the chances of any long term commitment. Of course, Cody brought up how we would have to work around having people actually show up, a major endeavor, and having people contribute, an even larger endeavor. Admittedly, I was very skeptical about the whole idea, and concerned about the revolutionary potential in San Antonio. The working class areas of the city are rife with poverty, not to mention San Antonio’s economic segregation is the 20th highest in the entire country (Jargowsky). It’s nearly impossible for the average worker, and infinitely more so for immigrants, to find the time or energy to come out to community defense or direct actions. I suggested we try to build class consciousness among the workers first before trying anything too radical or confrontational; introducing them real easy-like. By coaxing them in with very specific and intentional language that would at least piqued the interest of the average liberal, we could then accelerate into more explicitly radical politics. Cody and I advised to go slow, but Mapache was much more eager to begin, saying that “the potential will build as the movement builds” and so on July 17^th, 2018, we held a “Vigil for Justice” in honor of the imprisoned in ICE facilities and those killed at the border. Mapache did, however, listen to my and Cody’s advice as to be very intentional in what we publish or how we recruit and the flier had the time from 7pm until justice is served, as a kind of wink to those who knew. 

The night of the vigil came and we were to all meet at 3523 Crosspoint off Nacogdoches road, located in a very innocuous building at the very end of a small business park. The people arrived, not really knowing what to expect, or even the significance of why we chose that particular building. It wasn’t the hundreds of people like in Portland, but it was a start, and start we did. After the vigil started, there were speakers and chanting, and afterwards, we informed everyone that we were, in fact, standing in front of an ICE holding facility. Yeah, right under our noses off Nacogdoches and Wurzbach. However, in time we later came to find out that this particular office was the central hub for central Texas ICE activity, so we knew we were approaching something big. 

I’m going to divide the rest of this retrospective into three parts because I feel like it: 1) the failures and shortcomings, 2) the successes and lessons learned, and 3) the ideological underpinnings of the occupation and how it relates to spectacle and what will come out of the aftermath in the future. 

In reflecting on the monumental endeavor that was OccupyICE SATX, it’s clear that while the occupation had its shortcomings, it also served as a beacon of hope and a testament to the power of grassroots activism.

Photograph of Camp Cicada, courtesy of Worker’s World

Failures and Shortcomings of OccupyICE SATX

So, obviously the complete abolition of ICE and the release of immigrant prisoners didn’t happen, so I won’t discuss why that didn’t happen here. Instead, I’ll be focusing on the ideological and symbolic gaps of the occupation, how those failures played out, and what was intended. The biggest shortcoming of the occupation was in how its goals were articulated; not to imply that the abolition of ICE is impossible, but rather that there were no obtainable incremental goals that could scaffold into the super-objective of the abolition of ICE. The super-objective was the only goal in mind within this radical circle and so once the initial euphoria of the occupation wore off, the activists began to flake away until there were only a small group of three or four regulars left. The occupants, being largely Anarchists, took to a largely “wing it” strategy and would meet the challenges as they appeared, which created a system of incoordination, misinformation, and generally not knowing who had what supply or who was in charge of what. The result was that the culture of the camp was very relaxed and more like a hang out spot than a location of any revolutionary praxis. Instead, what should have happened is that the general assembly at the beginning of the occupation should have outlined specific goals that were small and scaffolded towards larger and larger goals. One particular goal I would have advocated was for the city to end its contracts with ICE. Something tangible and pragmatic that would send a message to radicals that even liberals could latch onto. 

A secondary result from this relaxed mindset was that the security culture was incredibly lacking. Among Leftist circles, there is a high need for security culture as infiltration by cops, counter revolutionaries, opportunists, and a host of other problems is incredibly common and is more often than not the lead cause of the fragmentation of political movements. We at the camp would see people from all over Texas come in and stay for a short while and leave relatively quickly without any trace or goodbyes. While I and some others would become skeptical of the newcomers, other more liberal Anarchists would gladly invite them in and discuss all the plans and operations about the occupations with total strangers. I’m not trying to imply that no new people should have arrived at the camp, but rather that the new people should have been kept at a distance until it was clear that they were trustworthy, committed, and authentic. The result of allowing total strangers full access to the camp was that one of them was a mole for the police, who were always nearby and keeping a close eye on all the occupants, and planted heroin underneath some sleeping bags. Luckily, someone found it and disposed of it before the cops arrived with an “anonymous tip” about drug use. It was obvious that one of the people who stopped by once and never came back was the plant by the cops, but to this day none of us know exactly who it was. What should have happened is for there to have been specific roles that people could fill in and swap at the end of every night. Obviously not everyone could spend each and every night at the camp, so each role would have to be fluid and easy to pick up from person to person. It would largely consist of four different roles: Planner, Collector, Social, and Everyone. Planners would have planned out what everyone should accomplish by the end of the day, set up noise demonstrations or direct actions against the ICE facility, reach out to the immigrants entering the facility, and answer questions other occupants had for them. Collector would be in charge of maintaining and organizing supplies, which include throwing away rotting food, organizing coolers and non-food supplies, and making sure that the space allowed for people to come in. Social would be in charge of the social media accounts which should be self-explanatory. Finally, Everyone would be a mixture of the three other roles, they would bounce from role to role to give second opinions and maintain the structure of the camps, they would also take notes at the general assemblies. 

However, the biggest failure by far was the change in locations. After the police unlawfully raided the occupation and forced all the campers out, there was a decision to move the camp to under a bridge on commerce. This decision wasn’t democratically made and it was largely made by people who decided to participate halfway through the occupation. This to me is the largest failings of Anarchist organizing, the cooperation of the group is so horizontal that people who don’t have previous experience or the longevity of the movement in mind have equal say with those who do. This is illustrative of the fact that in addition to moving the camp to under a bridge, away from the public, the camp was changed to be an outreach center for homeless people, totally neglecting ICE and the fact that Haven for Hope was not even 10 minutes away from the camp. The message was lost, the medium for our messages for the public were lost, and we gave away so many supplies within the first hour of the move that the camp wouldn’t last another day. Of course, when the people who decided to move realized their error, they moved the camp back, but the damage was done. After that fiasco, more than half of the activists dropped from the camp entirely. 

Successes and Learned Lessons of OccupyICE SATX

Unlike in Portland, where visible clashes with police and public spectacle are not only expected but even encouraged by activists, San Antonio’s history of police violence and brutality has, for the most part, stayed more than less hidden away from public discourse. Of course, we’ll have the occasional public outrage but the news cycle will promptly wash it away with the next scandal. The entirety of the operations of ICE and of law enforcement in general, corrupt or otherwise, are under careful orchestration to remain as hidden as possible and a large component of that strategy is them weaving themselves into the normalization of brutality into public spectacle itself, in other words, they hide in plain sight. At 3523 Crosspoint street, a largely anonymous building in the middle of a business park off Nacogdoches, where not even the workers at neighboring facilities knew what the building was for. I spoke to one in particular that didn’t even know the building was open or what business happened there. There were flags outside, one of which was the flag of the Department of Homeland Security, but the DHS flag was fairly small and illegible. The very existence of the occupation tore a massive hole into ICE’s strategy and that became one of the biggest hurdles they needed to quickly, but quietly, dispose of. One of the occupants, Andrew, used to work as a Border Patrol agent. Now an Anarcho-communist, they told me of how ICE and the Border Patrol work on kind of an assembly line-type of organization, where if the facility holding prisoners does not ship them out in time, the immigrants that Border Patrol have already captured are released for the simple fact that there is nowhere to put them. This piece of information was the driving force behind all of the noise demonstrations outside of the processing facility as this would repeatedly draw media attention to the facility. 

One particular day, it was me and two other activists that were setting up for a noise demonstration at 2 in the afternoon as that was when the bus carrying immigrants would transport them to the prison in Pearsall where they would likely be deported. Right before the bus would leave, reporters from Telemundo arrived to interview us and see the bus leave. An hour passed before the reporters left and not even 10 minutes afterwards did the bus and a cop cruiser emerge from the garage and left the scene. As we chanted “Se ve, se siente! El pueblo está presente!” for the immigrants, the cruiser blasted its siren to drown us out and keep the immigrants in despair. That was the moment that I realized the true potential of public spectacle and drawing attention to ICE activities. It wasn’t long after Telemundo aired its segment on our demonstration that we began receiving backlash from not only reactionaries but from the police inside the ICE facility as well. They were beginning to engage in spectacle and that was the turning point of the occupation. Spectacle was our biggest weapon against them and we had to do everything in our power to not only positively engage the public but to keep the momentum up from previous demonstrations. 

The way we kept up good relations with the public was through our social media presence. I was in charge of the Facebook group and would regularly post updates of donations needed, stories from immigrants and their struggles, and even drawings from children that would visit the camp. We had one 7-year-old girl named Sophia who drew a sign that said, “Stop tacking [sic] are [sic] land” with a picture of an angry face (Abolishicesatx). After this picture was posted, we received a large influx of messages of support and inquiries of participation from the public. We even had Robert ‘Beto’ O’Rouke’s campaign team come and host a small barbecue outside the camp. The more interaction we had with the public, the more engagement we would continue, both positive and negative.

Occasionally, we would have conservatives and reactionaries come to harass us, baiting us to physically fight with them. We even had a member of the Northside Skinheads, a white supremacist group from the 70s, come at us with a bat. But the biggest and most important clash we had was with Patriot Front. A subdivision of Vanguard America, this group of white nationalists came marching with banners, flags, and matching polo shirts to knock down one canopy and knock over some supplies, then promptly leave. This attack was mostly a photo op for them as they were gone within 5 minutes and once the news heard of this and spread the message, we were flooded with supplies from replacement canopies and chairs to crates of water bottles and baseball bats for protection. This small clash is honestly the best thing to happen to the camp as the giant spectacle between Leftists and the Alt-Right forced people to jump into action, whatever action that may have been. No injuries were sustained by the activists while the Fascists just took off with a couple of our flags. This clash became part of a larger narrative that the occupation began to build with the public, intentionally or not, and that narrative traded itself in for supplies and more media attention, all of which were critical for the survival of the camp.

Ideological and Optic Contemplations of OccupyICE SATX

In his book, The Year of Dreaming Dangerously, Slavoj Žižek talks about Occupy Wall Street and how and how 2011 was a year full of ideological strife and how the smoke and mirrors of financial institutions were essentially shattered. While reading his book, I found a number of parallels, both positive and negative, with Occupy Wall Street and Occupy ICE SATX, that the individual praxis of anti-racism, anti-homophobia, anti-transphobia, etc. began to merge into one anti-capitalist ideology that tried to strike at the core of what caused the financial collapse in 2008 and that the revolutionaries of the occupation were then obliged, even forced, to revert back to a 60s style of protest where the message is not necessarily the most important part of the protest, but rather the protest itself and its necessity to imagine alternatives. Žižek goes on to say: 

He then goes on to say that, in a properly dialectical fashion, we should also keep the ideas of alternatives at a distance as to not fall in love with ourselves as too many revolutions go and lose the true potential of a movement, to get so caught up in the action itself that the result becomes an afterthought. 

The occupation illustrated something that not many people believed was possible in San Antonio, a truly grass roots radical action that could sustain itself and even bring in help from liberals and centrists alike, while at the same time, the idea of public spectacle, of bringing the image and public relations of movements to the foreground of movements is an incredibly useful tool for political organization, especially considering that the far right has been using these tactics very successfully. Think of the Alt-Right, they are, by and large, Neo-Nazis but no one within public discourse will call them that because they have effectively changed their public image to incorporate more user-friendly spectacles that even centrists and liberals can agree with and when Leftists accurately call them out, they are laughed away by centrists, liberals, and reactionaries alike. I think it’s time that the Left and progressives alike embrace the usefulness of spectacle to advance social justice. 

In a properly dialectical fashion, we should also keep the ideas of alternatives at a distance as to not fall in love with ourselves as too many revolutions go and lose the true potential of a movement, to get so caught up in the action itself that the result becomes an afterthought. The occupation illustrated something that not many people believed was possible in San Antonio, a truly grass roots radical action that could sustain itself and even bring in help from liberals and centrists alike. However, it is important to note that the idea of public spectacle, of bringing the image and public relations of movements to the foreground of movements, is an incredibly useful tool for political organization. This is especially important to consider when the far right has been using these tactics very successfully. The Alt-Right, for example, has effectively changed their public image to incorporate more user-friendly spectacles that even centrists and liberals can agree with. It is time for the Left and progressives to embrace the usefulness of spectacle to advance social justice. By strategically utilizing public spectacle, the message of the movement can be effectively communicated and the momentum can be maintained. This will not only engage the public but also draw attention to the issues at hand and ultimately contribute to the success of the movement.

These successes and lessons of OccupyICE SATX can be attributed to a combination of factors. Namely, the occupation weaponizing the spectacle and leveraging symbolic attacks against the processing facility caused significant damage in their operations by bringing media and popular attention, even if that attention was to support. They had to halt all processes any time any media or cameras were out and so any new prisoners they kidnapped would have to be let free. Additionally, the decision to engage in noise demonstrations and direct actions against the ICE facility proved to be effective in drawing media attention and raising awareness about the issues at hand. This strategy disrupted ICE’s hidden operations and forced them to confront public scrutiny. Furthermore, the use of social media, particularly through the Facebook and Twitter pages, helped to engage the public, garner support, and keep us fed and safe. The camp’s ability to navigate through challenges, such as harassment from conservatives and the clash with white nationalists, showcased resilience and further solidified the narrative of the occupation. Lastly, by embracing the concept of public spectacle, the movement was able to effectively communicate its message and sustain momentum. Moving forward, it is crucial for the Left and progressives to continue utilizing spectacle as a tool to advance social justice, ensuring that the message and mission are heard by the people and their power.

Looking Back Five Years Later

It has been over five years since that fateful summer in 2018 where, for a brief moment in time, we changed the world starting at Camp Cicada. It is now 2023, and I have since moved out of San Antonio, leaving my friends, comrades, and lovers behind, giving up my youth so I can write this at 4:33 in the morning with only a couple of hours of sleep for company. Last month, I traveled back to San Antonio to see the occupants, some of which I haven’t seen since those summer days, when I still felt like a kid, but a kid who thought anything was possible. I was so happy to see everyone, they’ve all grown so much and we all shared and reminisced about those days and what kinds of lessons we should take with us. Multiple people, like Sharti, Brown Beret Vanessa, and I, mentioned that pure anger and hatred is not enough to sustain political momentum of the movement, but a spiritual or philosophical Love is what actually inspires long term effort and commitment. Indeed, anger will burn out anyone that tries to struggle against neoliberal governments that have all but shriveled in the face of two global pandemics, rising fascist movements, accelerating refugee crises, and looming climate collapse.

Remember when the ocean caught on fire? That was biblical. . . .

The machinery of war continues to slug and bodies of land are marked and scarred with barbed fencing and classifications of humans or aliens. It has been difficult not to swallow the black pill as of late, in other words, to subscribe to an ideology of despair after watching COVID-19 bring capital to its knees, opening an opportunity for the workers to actually, finally, seize power and even after the lieutenant governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, told us we should let the elderly die because “there are more important things than living” (Samuels). Even after all of that, no one actually did anything and the masses just went back to work. It was around this time, when I was trapped at home in a hell of my own design, that I began to think about Nick Land again, and not just to cyberbully him on Twitter. 

It was shocking and disgusting how prophetic his writing has become. In the past, he was simply a quirky philosophy professor with a penchant for the occult and amphetamine, but while they laughed at him then, God laughs at us now. What really sent me down this spiral of esoteric faith was one particular passage from the essay “Meltdown” in Fanged Noumena, which—with apologies—I will quote at length:

Nothing human makes it out of the near future, indeed; I felt chills crackle down my spine when I read those words. 

I could smell the evil wafting off the words and I could hear the machining and inking tentacles of some divine abomination who now controls this world. The fingerprint of its madness was all over the page, leaving its residual madness on my hands. I heard it laugh at us, how humans once imagined robots and automation as tools to create a paradise of leisure, and now that artificial intelligence rears its head, the workers have to consistently re-train, recertify, re-educate, just to keep ahead of prerequisites of work and its feverish acceleration. In that paranoia the workers throw themselves into, ironically, they create a world where the robots are the ones who live a life of leisure, with the likes of ChatGPT writing poetry and OpenArt painting portraits. 

I look back to those Halcyon days, we were so young and full of fire and now that fire . . . well it hasn’t gone out, but disappointments have cooled its flame. Now, I wouldn’t say I’m black pilled or even a doomer, but the general sense of despair and consistent disappointment of a general impotence among, well, everyone did eventually push me into a more post-left ideological position. This position became fully cemented when, as Marx always advised, I went back to study, and my favorite philosopher to start with, as always, was Žižek. In a Q&A on Twitch, Žižek outlined, what I believe to be, a fairly concise overview of Capital’s noumenal and undead tendencies. He explains that:

And how do you fight a vampire outside of time and space? You dont, but you try and make friends with ones who are

As of lately, I tend to focus more on spiritual connections and sharing connections with others. I see myself working in something like a hospice; no cure will be found, but it’s somethingsomething to help with the pain. Faith takes a different form than simply a set of private and personal beliefs that otherwise have no impact on civil society. It becomes a driving force that propels the faithful forward to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to, as the Blessed Virgin Mary so sang:

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.

Luke 1:51-53

Thus, faith transcends private individual convictions devoid of any societal impact and compels the devout to identify and challenge the structural inequities and mores. But faith alone is not enough. It must be coupled with action. It is not simply enough to believe in a better future; we must actively work towards it. The scriptural vignette of the Magnificat functions as an evocation of faith, when transfigured away from private passivity and towards philanthropic enterprises, as fostering an ethos of justice and mutual-aide. 

In reflecting on the monumental endeavor that was OccupyICE SATX, it’s clear that while the occupation had its shortcomings, it also served as a beacon of hope and a testament to the power of grassroots activism. Despite the challenges faced, including ideological differences, security concerns, and logistical issues, the occupation managed to achieve significant successes and valuable lessons.

5 years after the occupation and looking back serves as a reminder of the transformative power of collective action and the enduring legacy of grassroots activism. While the challenges of the present day may seem daunting, it’s critical to draw inspiration from past successes and continue the fight for justice. By embracing strategic planning, maintaining resilience, and harnessing the power of public spectacle, future movements can build upon the foundation laid by OccupyICE SATX and continue the work, the struggle, the cause of Camp Cicada.

C/S

Works Cited