PIVOT Statement: Our Communities Are Not War Zones: PIVOT Rejects Trump's Military Response
/June 20, 2025
Donald Trump has deployed US Marines and National Guard troops in Los Angeles under the flimsy pretense of stopping a 'rebellion.' America now has a President who wants to rule like a dictator, through fear and unbounded by laws. The use of Marines from Camp Pendleton carries profound historical irony—50 years ago, that same base was a sanctuary for Vietnamese refugees seeking the very freedoms Trump now threatens.
He is doing what dictators have done repeatedly in the past: victimizing the most vulnerable and using the community's reactions to the cruelty as excuses to seize ever more power. American soldiers are being used for a dangerous and unnecessary show of force as political pawns against the people they are trained to protect.
History has shown that dictators start with the most vulnerable, but we will all become targets, to be silenced into submission by fear. As Vietnamese Americans, we now have an opportunity to fight to protect the freedom that our parents and grandparents sought for us.
As PIVOT and its members stand up to protect our freedom, we will give in to neither fear nor violence, for they are tools of dictators. We will use the tools of democracy to protect it.
We will march. We will advocate. We will protect our neighbors from deportation raids that tear families apart. We will speak truth to power at every level. We will vote. We will do all this, and more, for we are living in the moments where history is made.
PIVOT exists because fighting injustice together is easier and more impactful. Together, we have the power to stop authoritarianism before it's too late. Our families didn't escape one dictatorship to accept another.
Here are some concrete actions to take:
Contact your Congressional representatives to demand they condemn military deployment in civilian communities.
Join a rapid response network in your community to protect families facing deportation raids.
Attend our community meetings to coordinate local resistance and mutual aid efforts.
Show up to protests and rallies.
Join your local PIVOT chapter or start one to organize in our community.
Talk to your family members about what's happening and why it matters. Share this statement with your networks and commit three friends to take action with you.
Democracy requires all of us. The time for action is now, and this fight is ours.