Ms. Rachel Keeps up the Good Work as She Battles ICE

Just because you haven’t seen the media showing videos from ICE violence in Minneapolis for the last couple of weeks does not mean that it has stopped. The law enforcement agency is still just as lawless as it was before. Now, they’re just also in airports, because why not make a bad situation eight thousand times worse? While there is plenty to be worried about thanks to the current administration, someone is making sure the focus stays on ICE: Ms. Rachel.

My kids were born right as Rachel Accurso was rising to prominence. Her fun and instructional videos were racking up plenty of views at the time. Today, when I went to take a screenshot for this article, I found a video of hers with almost two billion views! Billion with a b!! She has ten million more subscribers than Conan O’Brien does. She is huge and has not been shy about using her platform to help children. First, it was those affected by the genocide in Gaza. Now, additionally, she’s looking out for those terrorized and imprisoned by ICE.

Accurso recently appeared on NBC News to explain that she’s working with activists and lawyers to close the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas. ICE has been holding children and their parents at that facility, and there have been numerous complaints from children inside about harsh lighting, limited schooling, and moldy food. Again, that is happening to children. The same facility is where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was sent with his father.

It’s all infuriating, and Accurso has had enough. She recently spoke to 9-year-old Deiver Henao Jimenez, who is being held at Dilley with his parents. “It was unbelievably surreal to see this sweet little face and feel like I was on a call with somebody who’s in jail,” she explained. “It broke me, and it was something I never thought I’d encounter in life… We’re trying to get a child out of a jail to do a spelling bee. I just never thought those words would go together.”

Of course, Accurso has faced insane backlash for her views on Gaza, so it’s not surprising that all of the outlets you would expect to seize on this have been. “I am political,” Accurso said, in a quote that has been seized by the worst people. “It’s political to believe that children are worthy of love and care, and that every child is equal, and that our care shouldn’t stop at what we look like, our family, at our religion, at a border.” What she is doing should not be political. But, if being political means actually caring about needless suffering, then count me in.