Quote of the Week:“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. ... You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” - Eleanor Roosevelt Get Out on the Streets: Photo by zaya odeesho on Unsplash Want the scoop on upcoming rallies, marches, and related events? Visit OI’s Rallies, Marches, Town Halls and Boycotts webpage! Help Our Candidates Win! Action: Volunteer! Help pro-democracy candidates for our city councils, school boards, and Port win by showing up for boots-on-the-ground events this week. There are plenty of options including canvassing and campaign kick-offs. You’ll find them all on our Local Elections 2025 Events calendar. This calendar will be continuously updated. Also check it out on our website at any time. Indivisible National Actions: Boycott Deportation Profiteer Avelo Airlines  Photo by John McArthur on Unsplash Avelo Airlines wants you to think they’re “refreshingly simple.” What they don’t put on the billboards and “hello, avelo” marketing posters: they’re the first commercial airline in the U.S. to sign a deportation charter contract with ICE. Unmarked, secretive flights. No guarantee of due process. Public money subsidizing mass deportations. Action 1: Take the Indivisible Avelo pledge to not to fly Avelo Airlines — or any airline that profits from ICE deportation flights. Action 2: Send email to Avelo Leadership demanding an end to contracting with ICE to run deportation flights by emailing [email protected] Subject: End Avelo’s Deportation Flights Now Script: To the Avelo Airlines Leadership Team, I am demanding that Avelo Airlines immediately end its contract with ICE to run deportation flights and commit, publicly and permanently, to never profiting from deportations again. These flights are run in secret, without public accountability, and with no guarantee of due process for the people being removed. Partnering with ICE in this way makes Avelo complicit in human rights abuses — and puts your company squarely on the wrong side of history. Until you drop this contract, I will not fly Avelo. I will also urge my community, elected officials, universities, and local governments to cut all ties with your company. The choice is yours: end the ICE contract now or face escalating reputational consequences. [Your Name] [Your City, State] Federal Actions: Help Shut Down ICE’s Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma Photo by Bangun Stock Production on Unsplash Background: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) doesn’t actually operate its notorious detention center in Tacoma – it contracts that out to GEO Group, a Georgia-based corporation that profits from incarcerating people. The NWDC has earned a reputation for ill-treatment: Video calls get cut off; internees don’t get meals until midnight, and are kept indoors literally for months. ICE is on track to renew the contract Despite documented failures to uphold contract standards, GEO Group has never even been sanctioned by ICE. GEO Group’s contract expires September 5. Now is the time to tell our representatives we don’t want that contract renewed. Action 1: Contact your Members of Congress
Script: As a constituent living near Tacoma, I am disgusted by the poor conditions and ill-treatment of immigrants detained at ICE’s Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. GEO Group, the private corporation operating the facility under contract to ICE, has shown callous indifference to the well-being of detainees, delaying meals until midnight, keeping detainees indoors for months, and providing no reliable communications with family or legal counsel. GEO Group’s contract expires September 5; I urge you to prevent its renewal. Action 2: Contact these advocacy organizations:
Release Muhammad Zahid Chaudry from ICE Detention  Photo by Eleni Afiontzi on Unsplash Disabled Muslim veteran Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry was taken into ICE detention Thursday, August 21, at a citizenship interview at the USCIS office in Tukwila, Washington. Zahid, who uses a wheelchair, is an immigrant originally from Pakistan who has lived in the US for 25 years. He is a member of the Olympia chapter of Veterans for Peace, and has two young children with his wife, Melissa Chaudhry, a candidate for the US House of Representatives. Action: Contact our Members of Congress (take this action).
Script: As a constituent, I urge you to take action in the case of Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry, a Pakistan-born veteran who has lived in the US for 25 years and was seized by ICE at his citizenship interview last Thursday. Mr. Chaudry is a prominent member of his community; a disabled veteran; a member of Veterans for Peace, and the father of two young children; and the spouse of Congressional candidate Melissa Chaudry. We Choose Workers, Not Billionaires!  On Labor Day, September 1, Olympia Indivisible joins with Evergreen Resistance, Olympia Visibility Brigade, and the Backbone Campaign to protest the oligarchical autocracy of the Trump/MAGA regime that prioritizes the interests of billionaires while gutting the social safety net that has sustained us for over half a century. With overpass banners, protest signs, chants, and music, we will rally for workers, immigrants, and democracy by demanding funding for schools, health care, food security, and housing for everyone. By joining together to confront the Trump/MAGA bullies who seek to control us, we will show how democracy works to protect our freedoms, our families, and our futures. What: Statewide Overpass Bannering event When: Monday, Labor Day, September 1, 11am-12:30pm Where: Sleater-Kinney I-5 Overpass and Street, Lacey Civic Plaza, 521 Sleater Kinney Rd SE, Lacey Organizer: Olympia Indivisible. Coordinated by Evergreen Resistance and Olympia Visibility Brigade/Backbone Campaign Details: Please bring banners, signs, noise makers and your voice. We’ll have a booth for sign-making, and cards thanking Governor Ferguson for defending Washington’s sanctuary protections. If you can, please bring non-perishable food to donate to the Thurston County Food Bank. Join us by registering at mobilize Thank our State and Federal Reps for Standing up to Threats on Washington State Sanctuary Status  Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Governor Bob Ferguson warning him that Washington state “has been identified as one that engages in sanctuary policies and practices that thwart federal immigration enforcement to the detriment of the interests of the United States.” Gov. Bob Ferguson vowed Tuesday the state won’t be intimidated by threats of lawsuits or even criminal prosecutions against him and other leaders of so-called sanctuary states and cities. “That is breathtaking, and a letter like this cannot be normalized,” Ferguson said. “Let me be very clear. Washington state will not be bullied or intimidated by threats and legally baseless accusations.” U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell issued the following statement: “Our limited state and local law enforcement resources are needed to fight violent crime and fentanyl. Washington law prioritizes public safety and provides due process. The Trump administration should stop threatening states and focus on upholding the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.” U.S. Senator Patty Murray issued the following statement: “Washington state doesn’t need a convicted felon who provoked a violent riot telling us how to keep our communities safe.” U.S. Representative Marilyn Strickland said: “This is just another distraction from the fact that he’s done absolutely nothing to lower costs, has destabilized our economy, is putting people out of work, and doesn’t care if he harms children, families, the disabled, or seniors.” Action 1: Thank our Members of Congress for upholding due process and refusing to be bullied by legally baseless accusations from the Trump regime.
Action 2: Thank our Governor for upholding due process and refusing to be bullied by legally baseless accusations from the Trump regime.
Script: [please feel free to personalize this!] As a Washington voter, I wish to thank you for speaking out against Attorney General Bondi’s threats against the state of Washington for its so-called sanctuary status. I am proud to live in a state committed to keeping its people safe while upholding due process and refusing to be bullied by legally baseless accusations. WA State Actions: Protect Insurance Coverage for Preventative Care and Vaccinations  Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash From OI’s State Executive Team As this Wired article notes, several states have already modified their legislation proactively to allow their state to not only abide by the recommendations of the Federal advisory boards within the CDC (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)) but also or instead to abide by recommendations from credentialed medical groups and/or state level public health officials - or to fall back to recommendations in effect in January 2025 - in order to preserve insurance coverage for vaccines. A recent Forbes article notes a similar threat to coverage for preventative care given recent actions regarding the US Preventive Services Task Force. In WA state, plans regulated by the Office of the Insurance Commissioner must comply with RCW 48.43.047, which requires coverage of immunizations for children, adolescents and adults, as well as other preventive care and screenings - as dictated by the named advisory board and task force in the paragraph above. We need to contact our state legislators and request that they review existing legislation and make modifications such that Washingtonians continue to receive insurance coverage for vaccines and preventative care. Action: Contact your Member of House Health Care & Wellness Committee to request that they review actions taken by other states and develop modifications as needed to WA legislation to ensure ongoing science-based vaccine and preventative care coverage by WA health insurance providers. Members of this committee are listed below:
Suggested Script: Representative __________: In light of ideological bias and/or lack of staffing or predictability introduced into the ACDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and US Preventive Services Task Force which review and approve vaccination and preventative care recommendations, we ask that you review and modify RCW 48.43.047 such that we can ensure that state level public health officials and/or accredited professional organizations (e.g. American Association of Pediatricians) using science-based recommendations are considered as basis for required coverage as an alternative to Federal level boards. Another option would be to freeze recommendations as of January 2025. Several other states have already passed legislation proactively to ensure uninterrupted coverage; see this Wired article for various approaches that have been used. Local Actions: Strike Racially Restrictive Language from Your Thurston County Property Deed  Brought to you by OI’s Civil Rights Team Racially restrictive covenants (RRC) became a tool to enforce racial segregation in the state of Washington affecting nearly 80,000 properties. In Olympia and Thurston County at least 1,700 of these RCCs exist. While they are now illegal their racist language may still exist in your property’s original deed. Thus their legacy lives on. Action 1: Get informed about this history through the University of Washington’s Racial Restriction Covenant project. There you can learn about this history and find maps that indicate if your Thurston County property’s deed is one of the 1700 that has discriminatory provisions by linking to Racial Restrictive Covenants Project. Action 2: If your property deed does include discriminatory provisions, request a modification form from the Thurston County Auditor’s office to strike Racially Restrictive language from your deed at no cost to you. This information can be found at: Racially Restrictive Covenants | Thurston County Rise Up Rally  Workers are the backbone of public service – but public sector workers are under attack on the local, state and federal levels. The Thurston Lewis Mason Central Labor Council - TLM CLC invites you to stand up for the people who make our public services work. What: Public Sector Workers Rise Up rally Where: Washington State Capitol’s Tivoli Fountain When: Sunday, August 31st, 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM. Have You Scheduled This Events?Come to Olympia Indivisible's Small Group, In-Person Meetups Every Weekend in August!  Olympia Indivisible has grown very fast the last six months, and many of us have never met in person. Let’s fix that! Membership Team invites OI members to come to our weekend get-togethers. Here’s the scoop:
Saturday, 10 AM: OI Coffee Connection at Soul Cafe What: Come to the Cafe, support a local business by purchasing a cup of coffee and/or some breakfast, and get to know your OI community! You’ll meet representatives from OI’s Membership Team and/or Small Groups team members. Where: Soul Cafe, 300 5th Ave. SW When: Saturday, August 30 at 10am Action: Come join us – no sign-up or RSVP necessary! Sunday, 11 AM: OI Capitol Lake Walk What: Walk the Capitol Lake with OI member Zella. Make new friends as you get in your steps! Where: Meet outside the restrooms adjacent to Heritage Park. Zella will be wearing an OI pin. Stroll as long or as far as you feel like. When: Sunday, August 31 at 11am Action: Come join us – no sign-up or RSVP necessary! Comments are closed.
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