Dear Marmoset Community,
The escalating crisis in Los Angeles and across our nation demands our immediate attention and action. Our hearts are both heavy and inflamed. What’s happening in Los Angeles and many communities across the country is not only sickening—it’s blatantly illegal and unconstitutional.
- Non-citizens are entitled to due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Mass raids and expedited removals without hearings violate these rights.
- Detaining individuals without proper warrants or individualized suspicion violates the Fourth Amendment (protection against unreasonable searches and seizures).
- Using the U.S. military in civilian law enforcement violates the Posse Comitatus Act.
- Discriminatory removals based on ethnicity, religion, or national origin violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Retaliation for protected speech, peaceful protest, or advocacy violates our First Amendment rights.
Even worse, Trump is using Hitler’s playbook:
- Targeting vulnerable minorities as a scapegoat to stoke fear and consolidate political support.
- Undermining institutions designed to check executive power; encouraging public distrust in the press and courts; silencing critics to consolidate total power.
- Using state force against perceived internal enemies, including civilians, political opponents, and marginalized communities.
- Normalizing and justifying political violence as a means to power or control.
- Ethnic and minority cleansing through mass removals often beginning with illegal arrests, no due process, and camps.
Our communities, including our friends, families, and loved ones, are being rounded up and detained by Federal ICE agents, targeted simply because of who they are or what they look like.
Many across our communities are gathering to exercise our First Amendment rights to protest, demand justice, and take a stand against unchecked power. We see you. We support you. We are with you.
Marmoset commits to full solidarity with you. We also recognize that showing up means more than just talking about it. Marmoset has made financial investments in Feed The Streets LA for their emergency grocery delivery operation and Pueblo Unido PDX – doing what we can to support those on the front lines. Marmoset also provides an employee benefit for paid training and bail support for our teammates who choose to peacefully protest for civil justice. We’ve also encouraged our staff to take any time they may need to participate in what’s happening in our communities — whether that be protesting, processing, showing up for friends and family, self-care, or whatever folks may need.
Here is a list our team compiled of organizations, resources, and ways to get involved.
More than anything, we encourage our friends, family, artists, clients, industry, friends of friends, and anyone listening to be brave and take action in a meaningful way. As Dr King said, “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people, but the silence over that by the good people.”
We must not be silent.
Please, let’s lean in and work together, knowing this is likely more of a marathon than a sprint. Let us know if we can show up for you and lend support in some way. Our hearts go out to our Los Angeles friends and family.
In solidarity,
Ryan Wines
CEO & Founder, Marmoset