Cascade Party

Immigration

By Pela Selene Terry, Ed.D. (November 17, 2025)

Like many who care about the wellbeing of all human beings, I find myself unsettled by current ICE enforcement practices. The treatment of citizens and noncitizens, including people who are legally waiting for status, has left me emotionally and spiritually rattled. It is difficult to balance the desire for action with the steady stream of distressing reports that continue to unfold across the country.

One afternoon, while staring into the quiet space of my rental town home, I noticed my small ceramic animals. Elephants, turtles, and frogs that always make me smile. It then struck me that a frog would become a symbol for something much larger. It reminded me that we need new immigration policies, and we need them now.

The Power of the Frog

History often turns on the actions of ordinary people who decide that silence is no longer possible.

Peaceful protest has always played a role in that change. Yet it was not a march or a speech that snapped me awake this time. It was the moment that a frog became a national symbol.

I read news about what initially happened at a peaceful demonstration in Portland, OR.

Protesters stood quietly with signs and music playing, including a man in a bright green inflatable frog costume at the front. The frog was harmless and cheerful, and served as a gentle reminder that not every response to injustice must be heavy or loud.

It was simply a peaceful presence meant to bring attention to the rising intensity of immigration enforcement.

Officers arrived in riot gear. They issued dispersal warnings and the protesters remained still in silent civil disobedience.

Then an officer lifted a pepper spray canister and fired it toward the front. Several people were struck and so was the inflatable frog standing quietly on the pavement.

The image was stunning — a line of armored officers spraying chemical irritant at a person in a frog costume.

The moment was absurd, disturbing and revealing. If something so clearly harmless could be treated as a threat, what does that say about the treatment of actual human beings caught in the system?

This moment went viral and people began showing up at protests with their own frogs. Ceramic frogs, crocheted frogs, inflatable frogs, even cardboard frogs taped to hats. The frog became a symbol of peaceful resistance, and surprisingly, it helped many people reengage with an issue that felt too heavy to face every day.

Satire brought clarity to a situation that had grown dangerously overwhelming.

The Fear

Fear remains a central barrier to civic participation. It is not accidental in immigration enforcement. It is a strategic tool that disrupts advocacy, keeps communities divided and silences people who might otherwise speak out.

Many of us carry personal memories that strengthen that fear. I think of the militarized presence in California, the pepper-spraying of a priest who stood in peace, and the invasion of my hometown of Chicago that involved helicopters flying low over neighborhoods and toddlers being restrained.

I think of the Indigenous woman in Iowa who presented both tribal and federal identification during a routine traffic stop yet was still held for ICE agents. I think of a father and his toddler who were pepper-sprayed in their vehicle and the reports that more than 170 U.S. citizens have been unlawfully detained. I think of the conditions in detention centers that no society should accept.

And I think of the personal fear that comes with having an uncommon name that invites constant questions about where I am really from, despite being a natural-born U.S. citizen.

These fears are not imagined. They are lived.

Fairness & Reality

Every developed country in the world has a process with how people enter its borders.

In the United States, there are people, many relatively recent immigrants themselves, who play by the rules. They seek to bring loved ones into our country, but find themselves waiting, while spending thousands of dollars in legal fees.

It’s not fair for someone to overstay their visa, while others following the rules, are still in line to get in our country.

Rule breaking is one thing, we must also address the matter of criminality. Immigration enforcement can protect us from bad people.

Freedom and a Call to Action

The fact that undocumented immigrants are filling a need for labor in our country makes the case for immigration reform. These folks are contributing to our economy. They also exemplify the values of hard work — which reflects an inherent decency. There is space in our society for this contribution.

We need an honest conversation, within constitutional integrity and coordinated advocacy, that protects the dignity of every person affected by immigration enforcement.

We do not lack solutions. We lack the awareness to implement them. There have been immigration policy bills gaining significant traction in Congress. Let’s convert the energy channeled by the frog-power into a legislative package.

This package must include respect for the Fourth Amendment (clear due process for all detained individuals), resolution for those already in citizenship proceedings, transparency from enforcement agents, limits on the seizure of people with pending cases, removal of financial incentives tied to arrests and a careful review of border procedures grounded in contemporary technology and real human considerations.

We must push for better policies so that fear no longer governs our existence and we can live and thrive together. We are a nation of diverse people who all deserve dignity and safety.

Our current enforcement practices, and lack of a legislative solution, undermine that dignity. And strangely enough, it took a frog to shake us awake.

Image: Zuma Press, ALAMY

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