by Barbie Jackson | Jan 30, 2026 | Uncategorized
Mayor’s Message
“I would like to take a moment to assure community members who are concerned regarding potential ICE action in our city. Madison is — and will remain — a welcoming city that supports its immigrant and refugee communities.
City of Madison staff are closely coordinating with emergency management personnel, local law enforcement, and the organizations who are directly serving our immigrant populations. We are also engaged in scenario-planning for situations that other cities have faced in recent months and are in touch with staff in those cities to make sure that we learn from their experience. The City’s Know Your Rights page has links to useful information about how to protect yourself, your family and our community. Our priority, as always, is to keep Madison safe.
There are many ways you can uphold our values while keeping everyone safe from harm. Consider supporting organizations that work with our immigrant community members. Make sure you know your rights and share that information with your networks. Stop doomscrolling on social media and get to know your neighbors. Our community is a better place when we know and support each other.”
— Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway
by Barbie Jackson | Jan 29, 2026 | Action Opportunities, Featured, WISDOM
Gamaliel and WISDOM, the parent organizations of MOSES, have declared that they oppose funding ICE and CBP. They have issued a call to all affiliates to:
Take action – Please contact your U.S. Senators to tell them to vote NO on the FY2026 DHS Bill & Halt ALL Funding for ICE and CBP:
ONLINE DIRECT ACTION FORM
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| Partial Message from WISDOM President, Kathleen Gloff
Dear Ones,
After Alex Pretti was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Saturday morning, Gamaliel called an emergency meeting regarding immigration on Saturday night. I was among the representatives who saw the notification and was able to join the meeting from WISDOM that evening. It was decided that each affiliate across the country should conduct some sort of public action or event on Friday January 30th at a time of their choosing.
Those of us on the call for WISDOM decided to ask each of our affiliates to have a “Call-a-thon” at one (or more) of the member congregations of your affiliate. The idea is to call legislators asking them to:
- Defund ICE.
- Provide a safety plan for those exercising their First Amendment right to peacefully protest.
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Note: Dane County’s Sheriff Barrett has not signed the agreement referenced and has stated publicly that he will not, so the suggestion is to contact him to thank him.
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It was also suggested that each affiliate that is able have a press conference/protest at their Sheriff’s Office, calling for the sheriffs that have signed 287g agreements to rescind them and lauding Sheriff’s that have refused to sign 287g agreements.
A list of the counties whose sheriffs have signed 287g agreements is here.
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Thank you for all that you are doing;
Your work for justice encourages and emboldens me.
I am grateful…
Kathleen Gloff
She/her/hers
“There is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
Amanda Gorman
Wisconsin 287(g) Agreements
Call-A-Thon Letter to WISDOM Beloved Community |
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by Barbie Jackson | Jan 18, 2026 | Advocacy, Featured, Special Content, Support MOSES
Image source https://www.overture.org/tickets-events/2025-26-season/41st-annual-madison-dane-county-mlk-day-observance/
Dreams are fundamental because they shape vision, give purpose, and move people to action. They help us imagine what does not yet exist and provide the moral and emotional energy needed to pursue change. Without dreams, there is no direction; without direction, there is no progress. Dreams are often the starting point for justice, transformation, and hope—they are the seeds from which courage, resilience, and collective action grow.
Growing up in Warren, Arkansas, I came of age in a small, close-knit community shaped by segregation, resilience, and hope, a place where dreams were often tested but not easily extinguished. Like Langston Hughes asks in “What Happens to a Dream Deferred,” I, too, lived in a world where dreams could have dried up, sagged under pressure, or been delayed by the harsh realities of the Jim Crow South. Yet my dream was not deferred. It was nurtured by family, faith, education, and a deep sense of justice that refused to be silenced. Those early experiences planted in me a lifelong commitment to stand up, speak out, and work for change. Today, that same dream lives on through MOSES—Madison Organizing in Strength, Equity, and Solidarity—which is not separate from my dream but a fulfillment of it. MOSES represents the living answer to Hughes’s question: when a dream is held with purpose and acted upon in the community, it does not wither or explode—it transforms lives and bends the world closer to justice.
My dream for MOSES is bold and unshakable: that it will become a pillar of Madison, rooted so deeply in justice and compassion that its impact can never be erased. I envision a community where there are fewer jails and prisons because we have chosen restoration over punishment, where there are homes for the homeless because dignity is treated as a right, not a privilege, and where policies are shaped by love, fairness, and accountability.
Where education becomes a promise rather than a privilege. It affirms that every child, regardless of race, income, zip code, or circumstance, is worthy of knowledge, opportunity, and dignity.
It breaks cycles of poverty, opens doors that once seemed locked, and equips communities to imagine and build a more just future. When society truly treats education as a right, it invests not only in schools and teachers, but in human potential—recognizing that informed minds are essential to freedom, equity, and lasting change.
As I look into your eyes, I can see into your hearts, and I know this dream does not belong to me alone—it is your dream too. Together, we carry a shared vision of what Madison can and must become. So no matter what people say, no matter the obstacles placed in our path, my dream, your dream, and most importantly MOSES’s dream is not—and will never be—deferred.
Keep dreaming, keep believing and keep doing MOSES!
Saundra Brown, MOSES President
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by Barbie Jackson | Jan 13, 2026 | Featured, JPTF Justice & Police TF, MOSES leadership, Policing
MOSES supports the advocacy work of our parent organizations, including the WISDOM Immigration Task Force and the Gamaliel Civil Rights of Immigrants Campaign.
With gratitude to Pablo Tapia Mendoza, Chair of Gamaliel’s Civil Rights of Immigrants, we borrow from his statement to the Gamaliel Network.
Our hearts are broken and our spirits are deeply challenged. On January 7th, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot and killed Renee Nicole Good on the streets of Minneapolis. The very next day, Customs and Border Control officers shot two more people in Portland.
These actions by federal agents demonstrate a growing pattern of violence carried out by the current federal administration with alarming ease and without remorse. These actions are in fact all too commonplace. Police have shot and killed people in their cars, their homes, their neighborhoods, and on playgrounds for years without constraint, with an extremely disproportionate impact on people of color. Lives are being lost, and the human and societal cost of these practices is unacceptable.
We were once told that enforcement actions would focus narrowly on individuals who posed a danger. Instead, we have seen members of our communities intimidated and targeted without any evidence they pose a danger to society. Now, this escalation has led to the loss of life. Similar incidents have already occurred in Tennessee, Iowa, Illinois and California.
We choose to speak, act, and stand together—before it is too late.
MOSES opposes these killings and all other acts of violence against the members of our national community. We call for nationwide adherence to use of lethal force policies, de-escalation training, and enforcement of the practices called for by these policies and training.
We commit to continue our efforts to understand, support, and advocate for systemic improvements in local, statewide, and national policies to reduce the appalling use of lethal force. As the local Dane County affiliate of WISDOM, MOSES supports WISDOM and Gamaliel advocacy in these areas while focusing our advocacy work on the local and State of Wisconsin standard operating procedures and the realities of training and adherence to policy by local law enforcement.
We call out the failure to abide by policies pertaining to use of force and de-escalation practices and the failure of the criminal legal system and law enforcement to hold officers accountable, especially when it involves killing members of our society, whether or not they are citizens. This includes the failure to adhere to policy by individual federal officers and federal agencies in the recent killing in Minneapolis and the woundings in Portland.
As quoted in the New York Times, Dwight Holton, the U.S. attorney in Oregon during the Obama administration, said that law enforcement training emphasizes that “you can’t put yourself in a position that creates risk to yourself so that you can have authorization for use of force.”
MOSES calls on the federal government to cease and desist in these practices and to hold the officers accountable.
The time to speak out against these atrocities is now.
“First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
by Barbie Jackson | Dec 1, 2025 | Featured, Housing, RJAC Racial Justice for All Children
Action Alert: Contact Congress About Critical Homelessness Funding Earlier this month the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released a notice of new grant funding for the Continuum of Care Program, which included major changes to this primary source of federal homelessness funding. Additionally, because of federal delays, agencies were given less than two months to complete applications. Last week, Gov. Evers announced that Wisconsin was joining a multi-state lawsuit to stop these changes.
You can use this link to amplify the State’s action by contacting your members of Congress and ask that they noncompetitively renew all existing contracts for one year so that program changes can be reviewed by Congress.
Note: When you get to the page with draft letters, scroll all the way down to make sure you complete letters to both your Representative and the two Senators. There is more information about the grant changes at the link. You can also use the following information to personalize your message:
- Dec. 12th update: This week, just prior to the first hearing on two lawsuits challenging its actions, HUD announced it was rescinding the funding notice to make “technical changes”. This further highlights the need for Congressional oversight of this process.
- The new funding requirements mark a shift away from the long-standing Housing First model to instead prioritize programs that provide transitional housing and impose requirements that those served engage in treatment and services. This change impacts our neighbors going through homelessness, many of whom will lose access to critical housing services and supports.
- The significant changes in grant requirements mean agencies will either have to make significant program changes or abandon critical programs. The Madison agencies at risk of losing up to $5m. in funding through these grants include the Salvation Army, Porchlight, Housing Initiatives, Urban Triage, Tellurian and The Road Home. These agencies form the backbone of our support for people who are homeless in Madison. Years of work creating our continuum of care will be undermined.
- Such drastic changes to the Continuum of Care program reflect a shift in funding priorities that would typically require Congressional oversight. The requested delay in issuing the grants allows for appropriate Congressional oversight to avoid catastrophic impacts.
- Current grants will begin to expire in January, but new grant awards will not be announced until May, leaving agencies without funding for up to five months, even if they are successful in their reapplications. Without grant funds, organizations will be unable to make rent payments to expectant landlords, pay operating costs, or make payroll.
You can link to this flyer to print copies to share.
