Human Rights
“Ohio Is Home for All” reads a new, robin's egg blue digital billboard in Akron, featuring faces of people of all races, ages, and ethnicities. According to the Ohio Immigrant Alliance and Elizabeth Zaleski, the billboard’s sponsor, all people who choose to make Ohio their home, raise their families and build good lives here, are welcome in the Buckeye State.
“Ours is a message of welcome and inclusion,” said Lynn Tramonte, Executive Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. “Immigrants are part of Ohio’s past, present, and future. The current federal government may see it differently, but most of them don’t live in Ohio. They don’t represent the opinion of millions of people here. We don’t need politicians who teach us to hate our neighbors. We need politicians who understand that every contribution matters and we are all part of one community.”
Elizabeth Zaleski is a book editor who lives in Akron. Concerned about current anti-immigrant policies, she reached out to OIA to partner on this billboard, which will be up through the month of February.
DHS Secretary Noem announced that federal agents in Minnesota will begin wearing body cameras. This comes after the world has been outraged about their behavior in U.S. communities — behavior that resulted in death and serious bodily injury.
As ICE and the Border Patrol threaten to surge in Ohio, people around the state and country are wondering what they can do.
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This article first appeared in the Buckeye Flame
New data places Ohio among states with the highest number of anti-LGBTQ+ incidents in the country in 2025.
GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization, released a report on Tuesday tracking anti-LGBTQ incidents in 2025 from the ALERT Desk, GLAAD’s Anti-LGBTQ Extremism Reporting Tracker.
Protesters braved the icy cold conditions to protest ICE in Columbus. Interviews with Emily Cole of Ohio Families Unite for Political Action and Change and Munira Abdullahi, State Representative, House District 9. Speaking event at Trinity Church follows.
Protest sponsored by SEIU District 1199 WV/KY/OH, Common Cause Ohio, Indivisible Central Ohio, Ohioans Against Extremism, Ohio Families Unite for Political Action and Change (OFUPAC), other allies and partners, and community members. Rally and march began at the High Street side of the Ohio Statehouse at 1 PM on Friday, January 23.
If Renee Good becomes just another name on a list, we will have failed her. And we will have failed ourselves. Because the lesson of every flashpoint is the same: outrage alone does not change the conditions that created it.
NOTE: This protest occurred prior to the subsequent murder of Alex Pretti by ICE.
Ohio State University ignored community and student demands that the Department of Homeland Security, ICE and Border Patrol be banned from the January 20 Career Fair on campus. So, students showed up and drove the DHS recruiters away. In the meantime, however, three were arrested although they were not breaking any laws.
Watch: Medical neglect in Butler County Jail, an ICE contract facility (Spectrum News)
In early January, Geraldo Lunas Campos died in civil immigration jail in Texas, choked to death by a guard. Last year, 32 people died in immigration jail, making 2025 the deadliest year since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was founded. Despite the dangers, the Trump administration continues to rapidly grow the nation’s civil immigration system, with help from Congress and some county sheriffs.
Trinity Episcopal Church on Capitol Square will act as an emergency warming shelter on Monday, Jan. 19, 2026 from 7:30 am – 7:00 pm.
In honor of Dr. King’s legacy, Trinity will keep its undercroft open to those needing shelter, coffee and food as government buildings and many social services close for the holiday.
All are welcome as guests or as helping hands.
A Compline (nighttime prayer service) for Peace & Justice will follow in the chapel at 7:30pm.
Trinity Episcopal Church on Capitol Square, 125 E. Broad St. Columbus, Ohio 43215
The Care Economy Organizing (CEO) Project unequivocally condemns the fear, intimidation, and threats targeting child care providers and immigrant communities in Ohio. Political extremists and bad-faith actors are deliberately stoking panic and hostility, placing families, small business owners, and the workforce that protects our children at risk. This behavior is dangerous, destabilizing, and has no place in Ohio or in our democracy.
We specifically denounce the actions and rhetoric of self-described “investigators”, who are targeting publicly funded child care centers. This misinformation and intimidation threatens the safety of Ohioans. These tactics, rooted in xenophobia and political opportunism, are designed to terrorize the community, not uncover the truth.
While Trump pretends he is saving Latin America, Greenland, and other places where he wants to plant the US flag, and presumably his brand, his war on the poor in America has reached new, unconscionable extremes. In recent weeks he has blocked childcare funds from Minnesota, as he tried to exploit a welfare scam there which as crushed the career of Governor, and recent Vice-President candidate, Walz. Now he has taken all of this another tragic step forward and blocked both welfare and childcare funds from Minnesota, New York, California, Colorado, and Illinois, claiming scandal, while offering no proof or evidence of any such thing. This is just crazy.
TANF or the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families is a miserly program that renamed welfare assistance like AFDC, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, in the Clinton presidency. One of the changes made these welfare payments block grants, allowing governors and legislators to divert fund away from the poorest American families to other ends or in some cases to not distribute the full amounts because of the Scrooge like policies.
Is this political? Heck, yes!