Relief, gratitude and a renewed commitment to human rights.

#Celebrate   #HumanRights   #CivilRights   #GrassrootsOrganizing

Dear NNIRR Members and Friends:

While we share – and take a moment to bask in – the collective relief and joy of the presidential election outcome, we know there is much work to be done to repair the Trump Administration’s damage to human rights, and rectify long-standing immigration social and policy challenges.

Like millions of Americans, we celebrate and honor the grassroots organizers across the country who invested years of hard work to build and strengthen local community power to deliver this victory. Their strategic vision and diligent organizing brought about record numbers of voters of color, immigrants, and youth – despite the COVID-19 pandemic, economic hardship, voter intimidation, and multiple attempts to stop the counting of ballots. Their tireless efforts to build multi-generational and multiracial coalitions remind us that there are no shortcuts to social transformation.

NNIRR, along with our partners and members, calls upon the new Biden-Harris Administration to reject the inhumanity and injustice of the current immigration system. Poor people should not be criminalized for seeking refuge from political repression, violence, climate disasters or economic devastation.

We urge the Biden Administration to work alongside civil society organizations to reimagine and reconstruct and immigration system that is centered on human rights, fairness, and justice.

The COVID-19 crisis has revealed many social and economic disparities, but also creates an opportunity to address the root causes of forced migration, and join the international community in creating pathways for safe and regular migration.

There have been close to a thousand restrictive and punitive administrative changes put in place by the Trump Administration, on top of an already flawed immigration system. Building a human-rights centered immigration system can start by immediately implementing several crucial and many life-saving steps:

• Extend healthcare and COVID-19 relief protections to ALL migrants.
• End family separation and incarceration, and immediately allow separated parents to return and reclaim their children.
• Halt deportations and release people from detention to protect vulnerable individuals from COVID-19.
• End Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). Immediately parole all people stranded in Mexico and allow them to continue their cases in the U.S. without any detention. 
• End all travel bans.
• Loosen travel restrictions for binational and transnational families on the U.S.-Mexico border. 
• End the use of Title 42 of the U.S. Code that is being used to advance xenophobia in the name of “public health.”
• Protect asylum. Increase the U.S. refugee resettlement quota to internationally accepted levels for FY 2021.
• Halt the construction of “the wall,” and undo the damage to the cultural, political and environmental territories of indigenous peoples along the border.
• Reinstate systems for legal immigration such as family visas.
• Reinstate DACA and TPS.

In addition, we call on the Biden-Harris Administration to work with Congress to create permanent regularization programs to allow migrants to fully integrate into our society and recognize the essential contributions of their labor.

Finally, we are grateful for the work of our national and global partners who, over the last four devastating years, worked non-stop to address multiple immigration crises and human rights emergencies at home and abroad. In this new political period, we renew our commitment to organize, lift up migrant voices, and advocate for human rights-centered immigration policy reforms.

We thank you for your partnership and solidarity. We hope we can count on your support as we build community capacity to impact policy predicated on human rights and dignity.

In solidarity,

NNIRR Board of Directors and Staff

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photo credits: Anthony Crider (Nov. 7th Celebrations in N.C.)

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