I was born into resistance.
In 1989, Sudan fell under a military regime. Six months later, my mother went into labor during the curfew. She and my aunt were stopped at gunpoint near Kubri kobar (Bridge) while trying to reach the hospital. Soldiers screamed at them to stay put. We were not allowed to pass until morning. My aunt later told me she still doesn’t know how my mother survived that night or how I survived being born into it.
That is how my life began: in chaos, fear, and defiance.
My father was a political activist who was forced into exile. Growing up, I learned about uncles and neighbors who were jailed, disappeared, or executed. Others fled to neighboring countries and we don’t know if they are alive or gone. Political violence wasn’t something I read but my lived in my family.
Our journey to the United States was not easy. We crossed borders from Sudan into Egypt. I remember the desert and the warmth of the Nile. I remember mostly women and children. I remember silence and survival. When I finally arrived here, I carried that journey with me the borders crossed, the languages that failed me, the constant feeling of being “other.”
One thing was always clear: I am a Black refugee woman living in the South. Everything was at stake.
I used to dream about what justice looked like. Someone once asked me what “radicalized” me. The truth is, I didn’t know what to do with my grief except to speak out. I thought about the men in my family who were jailed or killed. Silence was never an option (I repeat this to myself quietly even today in rooms where injustice is loud, but the space was never designed for me to speak up)
My first protest was after the death of Sandra Bland. It was also the first time I experienced police violence directly. One officer stopped me, then called others over. They surrounded me. I was handcuffed, threatened with jail, and asked how I “got here” whether I swam from Africa to Louisiana. They laughed as they questioned my presence in this country and told me they couldn’t wait for ICE to take me. I was a U.S. citizen at the time.
What makes this moment even more terrifying and clarifying is that I later saw one of those same officers inside the 19th Judicial District Court while I was observing court. In that moment, I understood something deeply: this is not abstract. These are the same people who police our streets, fill our jails, and decide who is treated as human.
That encounter broke something in me, but it also anchored me. It showed me exactly why I fight and why I choose to fight the way I do.
In Louisiana, punishment is treated as a solution to everything. Mental health crises are met with handcuffs. Poverty is met with cages. People are locked in pretrial detention not because they are a danger, but because the system is easier than care.
And I know what it means to build something different.
VOTE exists to shift power back to communities to organize where harm happens, to heal where violence has been normalized, and to demand solutions rooted in truth and dignity.
Intersectionality: criminal justice and immigration
Because of how policing, immigration enforcement, and the criminal legal system collide, harm in our communities doesn’t happen in separate silos as it happens at the intersections. What I experienced on that street was not just police violence; it was a moment where criminalization and immigration stigma met in real time.
Across the United States and especially here in Louisiana the systems that are meant to “protect” people are more likely to detain them. Louisiana has become one of the states with the largest immigration detention presence, with multiple ICE facilities (8; there is one being considered in Port Allan) operating across the state and holding thousands of people. Researchers and local advocates describe Louisiana as a major hub of immigration detention, second only to Texas in the number of detainees held statewide and several of these facilities house people under contract for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
At the same time, the national narrative that immigration enforcement focuses on “the worst of the worst” doesn’t match the data. According to federal compilations of ICE statistics, over 70% of people in ICE detention as of late 2025 had no criminal conviction at all. Many are held solely because of civil immigration violations or minor offenses, not violent crimes. ICE arrests statewide have surged in recent years, often sweeping up people who are not charged with serious crimes.
This is the moment where the criminal legal system and immigration enforcement overlap in the most harmful way: police, jails, and federal detention work together to funnel human beings’ neighbors, parents, workers into cages, often without serious criminal histories. This is not ambivalent; it is a choice of systems that prioritize enforcement over care and detention over dignity.
This is the harm I live with and resist every day. Because real safety and justice do not come from detention cages or policing that sees people as threats. They come from community-rooted solutions that center dignity, mental health, and healing, not punishment. And that is why our work with VOTE and the Unjustified campaign goes beyond voter registration. We are confronting the truth of these interconnected systems and building alternatives that treat people as whole human beings, not problems to be managed.
Through VOTE and our Unjustified campaign, we center community healing and tell the truth about harm. We call out systems that rely on punishment instead of dignity. We push back on the lie that safety comes from jails.
Real safety comes from mental health support. From community-led solutions. From treating people as human beings, not case numbers or threats.
This work is personal to me. I am an impacted family member across criminal justice and immigration harm. I know what it means to fear a traffic stop, a jail call, or a knock at the door. I know what it means to be Black, targeted, and disposable in the eyes of the system.
This is not abstract to me. The harm created by these systems is something I carry with me, and resisting it is the work I choose every day. That is why VOTE and the Unjustified campaign are not about surface-level participation, but about real transformation. We name the truth about systems that default to punishment, and we invest in community-led solutions that prioritize dignity, healing, and safety without relying on cages.
I was born under guns and curfews. I crossed borders to survive. Those experiences taught me early that systems do not automatically protect people like me. Change only comes when communities organize, demand better, and build something new. This work is how I bring that truth into the light, and how, with your partnership, we create a future rooted in care, accountability, and justice.
Post Authored By Sara Louis-Ayo