We Are Built to Rise

Advocacy
Written By Emily Whalen

Nacho’s detainment reminds us why we do this work. Our response is not retreat—it’s resolve. Together, we keep going, resisting, and showing up for social and environmental justice while building the world we all deserve.

On June 14, 2025, Border Patrol and ICE illegally and violently abducted our co-owner, José Ignacio “Nacho” de la Cruz, along with his teenage stepdaughter Heidi, just one week after her high school graduation. They were taken without cause off a public road, and without respect for basic human rights, the law and Constitution, or concern for the lives and livelihoods they anchor.

We stand strongly beside them, along with many community members, organizations, and colleagues, as we fight for human rights in this country and in our industry. Our team has been all-hands-on-deck, making time to conduct interviews, coordinate mutual aid for their family, attend rallies, marches and direct actions to advocate fiercely for their freedom. This is not an ancillary cause for us, rather a reflection of our core values as individuals and as a greater cooperative. Our greatest strengths lie in these commitments to both social and environmental justice. We believe that you can’t have one without the other – and similarly, we wouldn’t be New Frameworks without these commitments. 

Beyond our direct advocacy work on behalf of Nacho and Heidi, we remain committed and resilient in our work delivering excellent service to our customers and projects - the pre-eminent, queer-, trans-, BIPOC- and, immigrant-owned straw-panel-manufacturing, and climate-responsive-renovating team that we are. 

Nacho and Heidi’s illegal and unlawful abduction is a part of a manufactured crisis to instill fear and create instability. But for New Frameworks, it has had the opposite effect. We are not only undeterred—we’re outperforming. We’re ahead of schedule delivering projects to our clients, more aligned with purpose than ever. Co-owners are stepping in, stepping up, and are relentlessly pushing this work forward with clarity and conviction. Our local community members and the greater social and environmental justice, seed collaborative, cooperative, and architectural communities are flooding us with their support. This moment in time, while devastating, is proof of our power, not our fragility.

And that’s because of who we are—and how we’re structured.

We are a Cooperative, and we Cooperate as a Practice in our Communities

We’re a worker-owned cooperative. That means ownership, responsibility, and power are shared. When one of us is targeted, the rest mobilize. It's not just part of what we do. It's the foundation of how we do it.

Within hours of Nacho and Heidi’s abduction, the majority of our co-op members were physically present at the Border Patrol station where we presumed they were being held. We weren’t sure what would happen, but we knew we wouldn’t let them be taken quietly. By the next morning, individual members of our team and of the community had raised over $3,000 to help cover Nacho’s rent and urgent family needs. A petition and letter-writing campaign launched immediately. Organizing calls began. And perhaps most importantly, our work didn’t stop. Members of other internal teams offered to cover the first Monday morning tasks to make sure the work was fully covered.

We had the people, systems, and mutual trust in place to hold the weight of this change—together.

We Are Built for Resilience

New Frameworks was founded in 2006. Since then, we have weathered the most intense financial crises of our lives, a global pandemic, climate disasters including devastating floods and wildfire smoke, and the impacts of a deepening housing crisis that affects even our own team members. We’ve had partner farms lose entire harvests to floods. We’ve watched our state and country suffer. We are also confronting political attacks on transgender people, queer people, women, and immigrants. And yet, we are still here.

We’re resilient not because we avoid crisis, but because we expect it—and are built to move through it. Our resilience is rooted in our care for each other, our right relationship with land and community, and our commitment to collective work. When we are hit with hardship, we respond with creativity, solidarity, and regeneration.

Our members are our owners, and that means that every single person is deeply invested in the success of the work and in our place in the world. When one of us is attacked, all of us feel it—and all of us respond. Internally, this creates a resilient and flexible support system. Externally, our strength is magnified by the decades we have spent building deep and lasting relationships with our community in Vermont and beyond.

Rooted in Community

We are connected to local institutions, organizations, and individuals who support us physically, materially and spiritually. We are surrounded by communities who ensure we won’t fall—not because it’s their job, but because we’ve invested in each other for decades, and we have personal stake in each others’ success.

We are also part of national and international networks that amplify our strength as a small, worker-owned cooperative. From the sustainable building and biobased materials movements to immigrant, feminist, queer, and cooperative movements, we are never standing alone. These communities offer more than moral support. They offer strategy, resources, technical backup, and shared vision. We are all in this together, and we are all stronger because of it. 

The Power of a Decentralized Network: The Seed Collaborative

One of our unique  strengths - especially as it relates to our industry -  is our founding of and participation in the Seed Collaborative: a decentralized network of mission-aligned organizations across the country working together to create structural straw panels and other prefabricated, regenerative building solutions. Together, we are not only producing materials, we are reshaping the housing landscape to make dignified, safe, and climate-positive homes accessible to all. This work is rooted in a shared commitment to ecological healing, housing justice, and mutual aid.

Thanks to the strength of our internal team, we’ve remained on track with our production goals—even moving ahead of schedule in Nacho’s absence. Still, the Seed Collaborative has made it clear: if we needed help, they would be there. This is what solidarity means. A mutual commitment to show up for each other with care, consistency, and purpose. 

National Backbone: The U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives

We are proud members of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, a national network that  builds infrastructure for survival, thriving` and solidarity. When Nacho and Heidi were abducted, co-ops across the country reached out with offers of support and practical resources. Messages and posts were shared across numerous platforms, funding campaigns met their goals within days, articles started popping up like wildfires. We are living proof that a single cooperative can be resilient—but when cooperatives come together, we become unstoppable. 

Who Nacho Is—And What His Loss Means

José Ignacio “Nacho” de la Cruz joined New Frameworks in 2020. A skilled builder, equipment operator, production coordinator, and immigrant rights advocate, Nacho is a cornerstone of our team. He came to us seeking meaningful and just work, and gave us his brilliance, courage, and leadership in return. He has spoken at the Vermont Statehouse, guided our production team, and cared for our customers and our families.

He is a builder of homes. A builder of justice. A builder of community.

Nacho’s work as a carpenter and fabricator is vital—not just to the homes he helps build, but to the country’s ability to meet a growing need. We are in the midst of both a labor shortage and a deepening housing crisis. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the U.S. must build 1.7 million homes each year through 2030 to meet demand. At the same time, the National Association of Home Builders reports that immigrant workers make up one in every four people in the construction workforce.

These realities are deeply connected. Immigrant workers aren’t just helping us respond to this crisis—they are essential to solving it. Their knowledge, skill, and dedication make it possible to imagine a future where everyone has a place to call home. Without them, that future moves further out of reach.

When immigrant workers are pushed out of the workforce—whether through policy or fear—the damage goes far beyond the job site. We lose progress, but we also lose people. Families are separated. Communities are weakened. And the very foundation of what we’re trying to build—safety, shelter, stability—is put at risk. If we truly want to meet the housing needs of this country, we must recognize that immigrant workers are not just part of the solution. They are at the heart of it.

This story isn’t just about one man or one family. It’s about what kind of economy and society we want to live in. One where fear, disposability, and extraction rule? Or one where care, collaboration, and interdependence make us strong?

We choose the latter.

And we’re proving every day that it works.

How You Can Help

We’re still here because we are structured for solidarity. We’re still building because we have a network that holds each other up. We’re still fighting because we know a better world is not only possible—it’s necessary.

We’re not going anywhere. And, we welcome you to join us.

In solidarity,
The New Frameworks Team

Emily Whalen
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