When the Secure Communities Task Force took their sham of a “community hearing” to Arlington, Virginia earlier this week, they heard testimony for, but mostly against the deportation policy that has contributed to a million deportations under the Obama administration.

It should be noted, that in the video above Maria Bolanos, whom we have written about, is peaking directly to the assistant director of Secure Communities , Marc Rapp.

Like in meetings past, the action included a call for task force members to resign and a walk out. After the walk out, the meeting did continue.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, the site of the first S-Comm task force meeting, there was a protest at the federal detention facility, that ended in the arrests of five people, included DREAMers. All of those arrested have since been released.

These hearings, as reported by the NY Times, have served to bring more attention to the organizing against the program, but they also have presented a challenge to organizations and those within them, who are being funded to do anti-Secure Communities work but seem to be struggling to find their center.

As I noted in the first part of my analysis of a report released pointing out the problems with Secure Communities, there has been way too much focus on the “good vs. bad”. Originally this was limited to separating the immigrant community, by centering policing and law enforcement needs. Now it has spread to determining who is the good activist vs the bad.

Where bravery allows many to challenge those in power, within the multiple iterations of “movement” there seems to be a lack of that when it comes to checking ourselves beyond the message “shut down S-Comm.” The process certainly is as important as the outcome, as it is through the process we build stronger community among people. The goal cannot be who gets more people arrested, who gets to moderate a meeting to put it in their funders’ report, and it certainly cannot be about using the most vulnerable without full consent and disclosure as to the risks and consequences.

I hope we can all step back to examine our role as activists, media, and allies. We cannot ask for a just world if we don’t practice just organizing.