Friends, human rights in the USA and immigrant rights are one fight. This International Women’s Day, survivors demand truth, peace, and freedom.
Freedom over fascism is not a slogan for one day a year. This International Women’s Day arrives as women and girls face war, trafficking, detention, and state violence across borders, while women worldwide still hold just 64% of the legal rights men have. In Iran, UN experts say a girls’ school strike reportedly killed at least 165 schoolgirls, and human rights advocates warn that authoritarian governments strip women’s rights first because they fear women’s power most. At People Power United, we refuse the lie that these are separate fights, because survivors in classrooms, court files, and detention cells are all confronting the same machinery of cruelty. That is why we are naming this crisis for what it is and calling on everyone to rise together.
Human Rights in the USA Are Under Attack by War, Secrecy, and ICE
International Women’s Day is not just a celebration. It is a global call to action born from women organizing against exploitation, war, and exclusion. AP reports this is the 115th year of the day1, and Human Rights Watch warns that authoritarian regimes restrict women’s and girls’ rights more severely than rights-respecting democracies. That is the pattern we are confronting now: powerful men and powerful states demanding silence, secrecy, obedience, and impunity from the people they harm.
In Iran, the brutality is literal. UN experts said a girls’ primary school in Minab was struck during U.S. and Israeli attacks on February 28, reportedly killing at least 165 schoolgirls2, while Reuters reported that the same UN fact-finding mission said tens of thousands have been detained since protests erupted on December 28, 2025, facing torture and even the death penalty.3 Girls in classrooms are paying for militarism from above and authoritarian repression from within. That is why any movement worthy of women’s courage must say clearly: stop the war, protect civilians, and stand with Iranian women resisting tyranny on every side.
Then there is the violence hidden behind money, influence, and institutional delay. The Justice Department said on January 30 that it had published over 3 million additional pages under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, bringing the total to nearly 3.5 million pages, including more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. Yet AP reported this week that additional records were still being released after some were mistakenly withheld4, and Reuters noted survivors have pushed Congress for stronger transparency and new legislation like Virginia’s Law to remove legal barriers that protect traffickers. Survivors are not asking for spectacle. They are asking for truth, accountability, and a system that stops protecting powerful men.
ICE detention shows the same contempt for human dignity. Reuters reported that ICE was detaining about 69,000 people in early January and that a growing share had no criminal conviction or pending charge56; by late February, at least eight people had died in ICE detention since the start of 2026. AP found that Camp East Montana, the nation’s largest ICE detention facility, generated nearly daily 911 calls, housed about 3,000 people a day, and exposed detainees to overcrowding, medical neglect, malnutrition, and emotional distress while a contractor with no prior ICE-facility experience held a deal worth up to $1.3 billion. Families are being torn apart, communities terrorized, and taxpayer dollars are being used to fund suffering.
Immigrant Rights and Human Rights in the USA Need Collective Action
The solution begins by refusing division. This is how to resist authoritarianism in real life: do not let anyone tell you that war victims, trafficking survivors, and immigrant families belong in separate moral boxes.
The same politics that excuses bombing girls in classrooms also excuses secrecy for the powerful and cruelty in detention.
That means demanding policies equal to the crisis. We should call for an immediate end to attacks on civilians and full independent investigations into atrocities in Iran, for survivor-centered transparency in the Epstein files, and for laws that expand accountability for traffickers instead of protecting them. It also means rejecting more money for detention expansion when current reporting already shows mass confinement, deaths in custody, and billion-dollar contracts attached to unsafe facilities. As members of People Power United we must say what too many refuse to say: no more war without accountability, no more secrecy without consequence, no more blank checks to ICE.
Just as important, we need movement culture that matches the courage of the people most harmed. Women, especially immigrant women, survivors, organizers, teachers, and caregivers, are too often asked to endure quietly while others debate their worth. We answer that lie with power to the people. We organize petitions, pressure lawmakers, flood public comment channels, defend journalists and whistleblowers, support legal aid, and show up for the families targeted by raids and detention. We do not wait for permission to care across issues. We build the kind of social justice advocacy that authoritarianism fears most: public, disciplined, collective action.
International Women’s Day has always been about more than applause. AP notes that it grew from women’s organizing and remains a call to action, and Human Rights Watch reminds us that attacks on women’s rights are attacks on democracy itself.7 So let this be our answer: we rise in her name by defending girls, survivors, and families all at once. We rise by making human rights in the USA and immigrant rights impossible to ignore. We rise by turning grief into strategy, outrage into organizing, and truth into pressure that power can no longer evade.
Key Takeaways
Authoritarianism is never a single-issue threat. Women’s rights are restricted more severely under authoritarian rule, and women still hold only 64% of the legal rights men have worldwide.
Free the files means real accountability, not selective disclosure. Nearly 3.5 million pages have been released, but survivors and lawmakers are still demanding full transparency and stronger protections for victims.
No more blank checks to ICE is a moral demand. ICE detained about 69,000 people in early January, and the largest detention camp held about 3,000 people a day in conditions marked by medical neglect and distress.
People Power United exists for this moment. Progressive activism becomes powerful when we connect peace, survivor justice, immigrant rights, and democracy into one people-powered movement.
Now Is the Time
The stakes could not be clearer. When girls can be killed in classrooms, survivors can be buried under secrecy, and families can be caged for profit, neutrality is not wisdom. It is surrender.
At People Power United, we believe freedom over fascism means showing up for every person targeted by abuse of power and building a movement strong enough to protect democracy in the USA in real time.
Stop the war, free the files, end the blank checks to ICE, and organize like the future depends on us, because it does. We rise. We resist. We reclaim. And together, we turn courage into power.
March 28 is our next moment. Sign up. Show up. Organize. History has always belonged to the people who refused to stay quiet. That is us. That is now.
No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings. Only People. And We Are Rising.
Your Power in Action
➡️ Be the change: Tell Congress: Stop Trump’s Illegal War in Iran
🔥 Use your voice: Tell Congress: Don’t Fund Trump’s War in Iran
🚺 Tell Congress: Pass the Women's Health Protection Act and Protect Abortion
📧 Speak out: Email lawmakers to Stop Trump’s Mega Detention Warehouses
🗳️ Protect our elections: Email your Secretary of State — No ICE at the Polls
📋 Find a local No Kings protest and make your plan to show up on March 28, 2026. 👥 Bring at least two people with you and remind them that protecting democracy cannot wait.📍 Get prepared: Check out the Complete Guide to the No Kings Day of Action
💳 Sustain the movement: Become a paid subscriber and help keep this grassroots advocacy free and accessible to all. Donate to these champions doing the heavy lifting for our rights and freedoms: Bans Off Our Bodies
🗳️ Register and vote: Confirm your registration, make a plan to vote, and bring your community with you.
People Power United: Who We Are & What We Stand For
Hatred has no home here. Not now. Not ever.
People Power United stands unwaveringly against racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia, misogyny, sexism, ageism, ableism, sizeism, elitism, transphobia, misogynoir, and every form of bigotry. That is not a disclaimer — it is our foundation. It is who we are, every single day.
We are 300,000+ strong — everyday people from every corner of this country who refuse to sit down, stay quiet, or give up on democracy. We are not funded by corporations. We are not beholden to PACs or billionaires or special interests. We are powered entirely by you — by the people who show up, speak out, and refuse to let freedom die on our watch.
People Power United is organized by Laurie Woodward Garcia — an activist who has marched, organized, and fought on the front lines, from the Free the Children March at Homestead Air Force Base to the steps of Congress. Paid with hugs and kisses.
Rise Together. Build People Power.
Democracy needs you in it — not on the sidelines.
Join us! Every day, we provide ways for you to plug in, speak out, show up, and build power at the local, state, and national levels.
Subscribe for free and stay informed, stay activated, and stay connected to a movement that advocates every day for freedom over fascism, progress, and power to the people. Or go further: upgrade to a paid subscription — not as a transaction, but as an investment in people-powered journalism and activism that answers to no one but you. Or gift a subscription to someone who believes in liberty and justice for all-not just the wealthy or powerful.
Together we rise. Subscribe for free or power up today — because freedom over fascism, progress, and power to the people isn’t a slogan. It’s our mission.
