By Rivera Sun
After a month-long, thousands-strong Indigenous-led blockade of a Cargill port facility in Brazil, President Lula has finally reversed the Waterways Decree. The rule initially put the multinational corporation Cargill in charge of the maintenance of the port and the dredging of the Tapajos River, but Indigenous communities swiftly mobilized in opposition. They set up a blockade of the facility, calling for a reversal of the rule, arguing that what’s good for Cargill is not necessarily good for the rest of the river ecology or the communities that live upstream in the world’s largest rainforest. “What won today was life. The river won, the forest won, the memory of our ancestors won,” the Tapajos and Arapiuns Indigenous Council, which represents 14 peoples and led the protest in Para state, said in a statement.
Another campaign we’ve been reporting on, the NYC nurses strike, just concluded after negotiating for fair health care benefits, safe staffing levels, and improved workplace safety measures. With more than 10,000 nurses on strike, it was the largest and longest nurses strike in New York City history. Meanwhile, 31,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers in Hawaii and California are eyeing the end of their strike, though a deal has not been signed yet.
In more winning news, ICE facilities across the United States are being blocked, stalled, stopped by local communities. These successful campaigns have prevented DHS from holding a combined 41,000 people at more than 12 locations in Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, New York, New Hampshire and beyond. A similar set of local campaigns are also halting the permits and construction of data centers (including in New Jersey and Maine) with realistic concerns over water and energy prices. The pressure is building and state governments are considering moratoriums on new data centers and ending their tax breaks. All of these localized campaigns are not only winning important causes, they’re also exercising and strengthening the balance between local and federal power; and between megacorporations and people.
Across the country, ICE resistance is galvanizing high school students to lead anti-ICE walkouts, risking mass suspensions and arrests to oppose the cruelty of the immigration crackdowns. University students are pushing back as well. University of Montana students kicked Border Patrol out of a careers fair. Columbia University students protested after ICE agents illegally gained entry to a dorm and detained a student. Mayor Mamdani intervened, speaking with Trump about the situation, and secured the release of the student. The agents allegedly misrepresented themselves as searching for a missing child, yet another sign of the increasingly deceitful and sneaky tactics ICE is now using. These include posing as utility workers and service employees. In Minneapolis, residents continue to rally and resist as ICE operations still target community members, even at a slightly reduced level. A former ICE lawyer blew the whistle on how he was told to teach new recruits to violate the constitution. “Never in my career had I ever received such a blatantly unlawful order,” said Ryan Schwank, who revealed a “secretive” ICE memo that instructed agents to enter homes without judicial warrants.
This shift toward secretiveness goes along with increased attempts at censorship and media control. Under the direction of Trump-supporter Bari Weiss, CBS censored Stephan Colbert’s interview with US Senate candidate James Talarico. But then the interview was posted on Youtube and social media, it swiftly gained 85 million views – far more than it would have normally. People power made this blatant censorship attempt backfire spectacularly. It offers us a model for how to show authoritarians that trying to control the media won’t work. By intentionally viewing blacklisted, downranked, or censored shows, we tap into the classic dynamics of mass civil disobedience to unjust laws. We make them unenforceable through defiance. We deny the oppressors their goals. If they try to squelch an interview, we watch it and encourage millions of others to see what they’re trying to hide. This same principle has been helping young people (and others) overturn book bans.
On Tuesday, millions of people participated in a converse strategy: instead of giving Trump the attention he craves at the State of the Union, they tuned out. Viewership was down 11% from Trump’s address to Congress in 2025. Instead of listening to the 2-hour-long ramble, millions chose to listen to the People’s State of the Union or the State of the Swamp livestreamed rallies. Notably, dozens of Democratic legislators boycotted the State of the Union, while others attended in what they termed ‘silent defiance’. Rep. Al Green was evicted from the building for holding a sign that protested Trump’s racist video post by saying, “Black people are not apes.”
Resist and Unsubscribe is broadening anti-authoritarian resistance by encouraging people to boycott the tech companies that are supporting Trump’s regime. Economic resistance and mass boycotts have been a hallmark of the anti-authoritarian struggle throughout 2025-2026. New data shows that 11 million tourists refused to travel to the United States, either as part of an international boycott, such as the effort led by Canadians, or because of the horror stories around immigration, including the wrongful detainment of travelers. This decline in tourism, a 6% drop from the previous year, becomes even more potent in light of the fact that global tourism is surging and the US was the only major tourist destination to see a decline.
In other Nonviolence News, plant nursery workers spent Valentine’s Day revealing that the cost of cheap flowers is underpaid labor. The Sunset Park neighborhood in Brooklyn is working hard to transform its toxic industrial zone into a working-class model of clean and inclusive economic development paired with affordable, energy-efficient housing; green streets that lower heat and pollution; and jobs in clean energy, urban agriculture, and green transportation. After years of protests and blockades, Indigenous leaders in Northern Quebec have sued the government to cancel forestry permits. Environmental defenders in the Philippines doing disaster relief or building local renewable energy systems (think backyard solar panels, small wind turbines, and miniwater wheels) are being labeled ‘terrorists’ by the government, a process known as ‘red-tagging’.
In a significant – and powerfully symbolic – win for species restoration, giant tortoises have been successfully reintroduced to the Galapagos Islands, where they have been extinct for 180 years due to hunting and human-introduced species like rats and cats. Zurich has spent the past 35 years transforming its rooftops into a climate shield that reduces heat, manages stormwater, and increases biodiversity in the city. The European Union has put the brakes on the fashion industry’s wastefulness, banning unsold clothing and shoes from being destroyed. Instead, apparel companies must manage stock better, and increase resale and recycling programs. For reference, every year an estimated 4-9% of unsold textiles in Europe are destroyed without being worn. This waste generates around 5.6 million tons of CO2 emissions, nearly equal to Sweden’s total net emissions. Speaking of waste, when the South Sudan city of Juba canceled trash pick-ups, the youth mobilized a clean-up campaign to save the trash-clogged White Nile river.
If you’re enjoying these stories, check out the rest of this week’s collection in the Nonviolence News Research Archive. There are some great pieces, including a modern resistance song playlist, two fascinating articles on solidarity infrastructure and community care systems, and three essays about fiction and social change. (Yes, the literary nerd in me is thrilled by such a surfeit of stories on literature and movements.)
Explore 68 stories in our Nonviolence News Research Archive>>
A favorite story this week? I have three. One is a carefully considered examination of why civilian based defense is the missing pillar of 21st century security. In it, Jamila Raqib makes a compelling case for nation-states to take the efficacy of nonviolent resistance seriously when planning defense against occupation or military attacks. With a success rate twice as strong as military means, nonviolent action provides the best tools for defense at a fraction of the cost.
The second story I loved was about the scrappy graffiti activists tagging glossy, dystopian AI subway ads with sharpie messages and stickers calling for an AI boycott. They’re wrecking a million-dollar campaign with 12,000 advertisements promoting the creepy AI Friend that eavesdrops on all your conversations. Rolled out as a ‘companion’, it’s a front for the surveillance state. Can analog sharpies prevail over AI? We’ll see.
The third article that made me cheer was that Chicago has officially named one of its massive snowplows “Abolish ICE”. The name won 70 percent of votes in the “You Name A Snow Plow” contest. Chicagoans submit name ideas online, and the Department of Streets and Sanitation selects the top 25 names to advance to a public vote. It’s a powerful act of both resistance … and democracy at work.
Activist/Author Rivera Sun has written numerous books and novels, including The Dandelion Insurrection and The Way Between. Her study guide to nonviolent action is used by activist groups and university courses. She is a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent movements. Her essays on nonviolence and social justice issues have appeared in hundreds of journals. www.riverasun.com
This reporting by Rivera Sun was posted by her on February 27, 2026 at Nonviolence News.