How integrated voter engagement builds a family-led movement

I was born in the U.S. to Jamaican immigrants and raised in Brooklyn, New York, in one of the largest West Indian immigrant communities outside of the Caribbean. 

I was fortunate to attend public schools that reflected my cultural background and that of the diverse community I lived in. I was taught to embrace my dual heritage without fear or shame, and to embrace the diversity of my classmates, my community and my country. 

Only 37 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plyler v. Doe that a public education could not be denied on the basis of immigration status. They cited education as a primary means of instilling “the values on which our society rests.” I agree. 

But what are those values now when hostile immigration policies derail learning for K-12 students, reinforce barriers to higher education and threaten the progress of immigrant families?

For millions of immigrants in mixed status households the ruling is an empty promise. 

It seems there’s an implicit understanding in education philanthropy that education justice cannot be divested from its intersections with language, culture, race and immigration status. 

A recent survey suggests education philanthropy has shifted focus from K-12 academics to strategies that support the social, emotional and cultural needs of all students. 

But according to NCRP’s Movement Investment Project report on the State of Foundation Grantmaking for the Pro-Immigrant Movement data show that most of the support for the pro-immigrant movement went to policy advocacy and litigation organizations, and that total funding for the movement is less than that for leisure sports.

Funding for immigrants and refugees represent barely 1% of total funding from 1,000 of the largest U.S. foundations between 2011 and 2015, and 11 funders provided half of all pro-immigration movement funding between 2014 and 2016. 

As anti-immigrant rhetoric spurs violent attacks on immigrant communities and families are torn apart, it’s imperative that philanthropy see that investing in the needs of whole learners means recognizing the needs of immigrant students. 

Immigrant justice is an education issue.

One in 4 children attending U.S. public schools live in immigrant households. Seventy-two percent of U.S. born and naturalized children live with at least 1 undocumented parent. 

One million children in the U.S. are undocumented, and nearly 100,000 undocumented students graduate from the U.S. high schools annually.

Education funders undoubtedly serve immigrant communities even if they do not necessarily consider themselves immigrant justice funders. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has stoked fear within immigrant communities for the dehumanizing treatment of undocumented people held in detention centers and family separations at the border.

Immigrant students regardless of legal status have reported fearing that they or a loved one may be detained by ICE agents. 

Fears of deportation have contributed to: poor academic performance; anxiety and behavioral issues; and fluctuations in student attendance. 

Perhaps the most devastating blow dealt to immigrant justice and public education was the rescission of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Obama-era pro-immigrant policy that offered deportation protection, driver’s and occupational licenses, work permits and higher education opportunities for more than 700,000 immigrants including 20,000 educators across the country. 

Costs of college tuition places higher education virtually out of reach for the 30% of immigrant families living below the federal poverty line. 

Few states offer in-state tuition or state funding to undocumented immigrants, and, when they do, it is an extension of pro-immigrant policies such as DACA. Undocumented students do not qualify for federal aid.

These barriers to education equity are antithetical to the promise of justice and opportunity for immigrant children upon which Plyler v. Doe was decided. Lifting these barriers should be a high priority for education funders committed to an education system that serves all students.

How education funders can support undocumented immigrant students 

The variables affecting educational outcomes of immigrant communities should directly inform grantmaking strategies that are intended to support the whole learner. 

Here are 3 steps funders can take to be more responsive to the needs of immigrant students and communities:

1. Support the efforts of schools to protect undocumented students.

In response to ICE’s law enforcement practices school leaders have partnered with local nonprofit organizations such as Immschools to be more responsive to the challenges posed to immigrant communities and the students they serve.

Find out how you, as a funder, can collaborate with organizations on the ground who are empowering these schools to safeguard the education of all their students. It’s imperative that these schools have the resources they need to legally support and advocate for their immigrant students.

2. Give long-term flexible and capacity building support to frontline groups.

Grassroots organizations and advocacy groups are the first line of defense for immigrant communities at risk but they are largely underfunded. 

Invest in capacity building and immigrant-led organizing in the most at-risk areas so these groups have the resources to mobilize communities navigating the volatile landscape of immigration status.

3. Invest in the pro-immigrant movement beyond grantmaking.

The pro-immigrant and -refugee movement need voices as much as they need funding. Leverage your organizational resources to make space at the table for immigrant movement leaders. 

Speak out against deportations that dismantle families, make sure your investments do not support immigrant detention centers and surveillance, and call on your peers to do the same. 

Support the pro-immigrant movement groups in accessing 501(c)4 funds

The future of immigration reform in the U.S. depends on informed voter decisions. Even with limited capacity and resources pro-immigrant organizations have shown they can make great strides in promoting pro-immigrant candidates for elected office. 

With access to 501(c)4 funding the organizations will have greater flexibility to lobby for and against legislation, distribute voter guides that compare candidates based on their immigrant stances and organize voter registration drives. 

The Jamaican national motto says “Out of many, one people” in celebration of Jamaica’s multicultural roots. 

The U.S.’ de facto national motto is the Latin “E pluribus Unum,” which translates to “Out of many, one.”

My heritage is a reminder that there is strength in diversity, and what threatens the stability of immigrant communities threatens all of us. 

I challenge education philanthropy to consider the needs of our most vulnerable immigrant communities and support movements led by and for those on the frontlines. 

Nichia McFarlane is NCRP’s events intern. Follow @NCRP on Twitter.

Image by Molly Adams. Used under Creative Commons license.

The president of the United States, one of the country’s major political parties and its most-watched news network have stoked a long-simmering anti-immigrant white nationalist movement, one of whose pledged adherents murdered 22 people at a grocery store this weekend in an attack explicitly meant to maim and kill immigrants and their families.  

Anti-immigrant hatred is not new to this country. But the way the president, his political party and their cable news enablers have used it to gin up fear of immigrants based on malignant lies is unprecedented. 

Anti-immigrant hatred is dangerous for all Americans, not just immigrants. The ongoing campaign of white nationalist violence and threatening rhetoric negatively impacts us all.  

The body count increased dramatically with this weekend’s tragedy, making clear that the target on immigrants will always result in collateral damage. 

Immigrants are part of every community, big and small. When immigrants are threatened, our schools are less enriching, our communities are less healthy and our economy suffers.  

Immigrants are our family members, neighbors, teachers, doctors, nurses, entrepreneurs and community leaders.  

The rhetoric used by white nationalist leaders, including the president, is meant to intimidate and discourage. 

Only a grassroots, nationwide movement that is unabashedly pro-immigrant can keep our communities safe from the growing threat of white nationalist violence.  

And yet, foundation funding for a pro-immigrant movement has not even come close to matching the threat.  

Between 2011 and 2016, just 1.3% of grantmaking by U.S. foundations was for pro-immigrant work. In 2016 – the most recent year of data available – foundations gave more to leisure sports like badminton, sailing and golf than they did to support immigrant communities.  

And, while NCRP has seen preliminary evidence that foundation support for the pro-immigrant movement has increased since 2016 when Donald Trump ran a successful anti-immigrant campaign for president, it is exceedingly unlikely the level of funding has increased enough to be commensurate with the threat. 

The obstruction in Washington is meant to make the vast majority of Americans who are pro-immigrant feel powerless. Remember, foundation CEO’s and trustees, you have power and you can choose to use it.  

The threat this coordinated assault on immigrants poses to all Americans requires an unprecedented response by foundation leaders.  

“Next grant cycle” won’t be soon enough to keep our communities safe. We cannot afford the luxury of test grants or exploratory research. Five or 6% payout may be justifiable in ordinary times, but this is no ordinary time. 

Here are some actions you can take: 

1. Examine your current docket of grantees. Where and how can grantees be encouraged to collaborate with pro-immigrant groups in their communities? How can you help current grantees follow pro-immigrant movement groups’ lead?  

2. Make an investment in the long-term safety and health of our communities by exceeding ordinary payout ceilings. Your endowment can weather an emergency response to urgent needs. Move that money to pro-immigrant movement groups as soon as possible. Expedite grant application and review processes; lean on your staff and board to think creatively about how to take bold action with integrity to your institution’s values and mission. 

3. Look to field leaders for advice on how and where to move more pro-immigrant resources. FIRM, We Are All America, the Four Freedoms Fund, United We Dream, the Security and Rights Collaborative, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, the Rise Together Fund and NCRP’s many pro-immigrant nonprofit member organizations are good people with whom to start a conversation. 

4. Talk to your peers about their role in changing the conversation. Foundation CEOs and trustees respond to each other’s example and take seriously their peers’ advice. Work your network. Help them understand the extraordinary circumstances the country finds itself in and how they can use all the resources and influence at their disposal to fight for what’s right. 

Foundation CEOs and trustees are entrusted with resources meant for the public good. Their positions of authority at grantmaking institutions make them civic and community leaders whose voice carries far.  

In a time of escalating rhetoric that has led to real violence, CEOs and trustees owe it to their communities to ask themselves a few fundamental questions:  

1. What good is a multi-million-dollar endowment if it can’t be put to use in times of emergency?  

2. How can you leverage your role as community leader, convener and conscience-keeper to advance a pro-immigrant message that will ensure we are all safer and healthier in the long run?  

3. What do you hope history will say about your tenure as guardian of your institution’s values when it looks back on this uniquely perilous time in America? 

You have the power to begin answering those questions for yourself, for your institution and for your community. Don’t let that power go to waste. 

Ryan Schlegel is NCRP’s director of research. Follow @r_j_schlegel and @NCRP on Twitter. 

With World Refugee Day last month, and May being National Foster Care Month, now is the perfect time to bring more awareness to the increasing number of migrant children entering the foster care system within the U.S.

Of the 10,000s of referrals the Office of Refugee Resettlement receives every year for migrant children to be placed in foster care, almost 5,000 enter the system, in addition to the almost 500,000 U.S.-born children in foster care.

While the reasons these children are entering the system vary, 1 thing is certain: The risks associated with aging out of the system are even higher for migrant children, especially those of color.

According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, on average, more than 68% of migrant children without parents or guardians who came to the U.S. from 2014 and 2018 were between the ages of 15 to 17 years old.

In most states, once a child turns 18, they are no longer considered a ward of the state, and depending on a child’s immigration or asylum status, a child may be more likely to experience a lack of educational opportunities, homelessness and unemployment.

In addition, racial and ethnic discrimination in America continues to run rampant. There are political, economic and social barriers that exist for people of color in this country, and the development opportunities for migrant children of color are left unprotected. Children below the age of 18 have the least power and wealth.

Discrimination may occur at the institutional level because children of color are less likely to receive mental health services, have fewer visits with their parents or siblings whom they have been separated from and are less likely to receive services designed to reunite them with relatives.

On an individual level, migrant children may face verbal ridicule, harassment and physical assault from their peers, whether that be in school, foster family placement or a group-home setting.

Studies have shown that a child’s perception of direct discrimination can have a plethora of negative psychological, physical, academic and social consequences.

Thus, it is disappointing that less than 1% of funding for aging out of foster care was specifically designated to children of color since 2014, with a bulk of that grantmaking occurring in 2016.

Without taking a strong stance on supporting racial equity within the foster care system, funders continue to add to the disenfranchisement of children of color. 

Funders have the power to change the lives of these children facing such complex issues, enlarged by their legal status and racial background, by:

• Funding advocacy efforts. Increasing funds to efforts such as rallies and workshops not only helps educate the public about the challenges faced by migrant children of color aging out of the foster care system, but it can also inspire more individuals to engage in the movement.
• Promoting youth-led organizing. Funders can help amplify their voices by investing in youth leadership programs that train young people to engage in collective action and make substantive contributions to their communities, such as knowledge of their rights within the U.S. foster care system.
• Designate more funding towards migrant children of color. Because migrant children of color may experience the same challenges as other migrants and children of color within the foster care system, it is important to recognize that they need additional support. Funders should review their grant portfolios to see how to support this group within current grantmaking practices.

Funders can take action against this inequity and push for a more diverse and inclusive society by backing those who not only provide resources to migrant children of color, but also raises their own voices.

Sabrina Laverty is NCRP’s research intern. Follow @NCRP on Twitter.

Grantmakers and donors need to support frontline immigrant and refugee justice efforts now because lives are at stake.

As a Jewish American, one of the most haunting experiences I’ve ever had was looking at the display of hundreds of children’s shoes at the U.S. Holocaust museum. They represent the 1.5 million children who were detained and murdered by the Nazis. Some died in the gas chambers, some from infectious disease born of camp conditions, some of starvation.

Jews and allies at the Cannon House Office Building’s Rotunda on July 9, 2019, to say #NeverAgainIsNow. Photo by Timi Gerson.

I don’t know the names of the first 7 Jewish children who died in Hitler’s Germany. I do know the names of the first 7 migrant children who died in Trump’s American concentration camps: 1-year old Mariee Juarez, 2-year-old Wilmer Josué Ramírez Vásquez, 7-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquín, 8-year old Felipe Gomez Alonzo, 10-year old Darrlyn Cristabel Cordova-Valle, 15-year old Carlos Gregorio Hernández Vasquez and 16-year old Juan de León Gutiérrez.

Philanthropy: What are we doing today to stop another child from dying tomorrow?

It’s not a new story.

Black and Native American communities have faced family separation, state-sponsored violence and genocidal policies since this country’s founding. The Obama Administration deported between 3-5 million immigrants and helped create the infrastructure that the Trump administration has weaponized.

Black immigrants are 7-9% of the migrant population, but make up 25% of those in detention who face deportation. A large percentage of the migrants and refugees from Central America are non-Spanish speaking indigenous peoples.

Excuses are not acceptable.

In our interviews for the Movement Investment Project, movement leaders told us that funders often tell grantseekers that they “don’t have an immigration portfolio.”

This excuse rings hollow in the face of a national armed enforcement infrastructure that detains and imprisons our immigrant neighbors and asylum seekers fleeing violence. In the words of rabbi and civil rights activist Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”

Some local funders may feel that this is a “federal issue” for Congress to fix, and that, while terrible and sad, immigration “doesn’t fit” with their local grantmaking goals and priorities.

But there are detention centers in every state, including yours. The Trump administration continues to push for a citizenship questions to the 2020 U.S. census. Republican efforts to undercount marginalized people (embodied by, but not limited to the citizenship question) will have an impact on your community from health care to education to transportation and beyond.

You have resources and power – now is the time to use them.

My grandmother Sophie was 11 years old when she arrived in the United States, after a year spent walking across Europe as a refugee. She, her mother Esther and little brother Moishe arrived in a migrant caravan by sea, part of an exodus of Jews fleeing brutal pogroms in Eastern Europe. Her journey was possible because of financial support from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS).

Years later, during the McCarthy era, the U.S. government tried to strip her of her naturalized citizenship and deport her. She fought back through organizing and with the solidarity of neighbors and allies. She won.

I named my daughter after my grandmother because I want her to grow up knowing that our immigrant neighbors – those that arrived here 30 years ago and those that arrived here yesterday – deserve our support and solidarity just as her namesake did. That families belong together. That our own family exists because people with power used it to support my grandmother as a child migrant and as a mother fighting to stay with her children.

U.S. foundations spend more than $60 billion in annual grantmaking. Historically, barely 1% of it has gone to support immigrants and refugees. Philanthropic support for immigrant and refugee justice is lowest in the regions of our country – the Southeast and the Southwest – where ICE detentions and deportations are highest.

While more funding is flowing in light of current crises, it is not enough especially when Congress recently gave billions more to border enforcement and detention agencies. Frontline grassroots organizations need flexible, long-term support to meet immediate challenges and to build power not only for today’s fight, but also to build tomorrow’s future.

Funders have more than dollars to give. There are at least 3 concrete additional ways we can support immigrant and refugee communities under attack:

1. Connect nonprofits working for immigrant and refugee justice to new sources of funding and decision-makers in your city, state or region.

2. Amplify movement advocacy demands – including the demand to #closethecamps – on social media, in your newsletters and publications and in the press.

3. Divest from corporations that run detention centers and prisons, following the example of funder peers such as the Edward W. Hazen Foundation.

If you are still wondering what can you do, the answers are simple: Hundreds of immigrant justice movement leaders have told us exactly what they need from us. NCRP has many additional resources that can help grantmakers and donors effectively support the immigrant and refugee justice efforts across the country.

The question is not what to do, but if we will do it.

Timi Gerson is vice president and chief content officer of NCRP. Follow @NCRP and @timigerson on Twitter.

Header image: On July 9, 2019, Jews and allies at the Cannon House Office Building say #NeverAgainIsNow. Photo by Timi Gerson.

Around the table were a mother, her daughters, the attorney and myself. Tearfully, the mother shared how their lives had been threatened by gangs who were controlling their neighborhood in Honduras.

One of the gang members wanted to force a relationship with one of her daughters. Her daughter’s “best friend” had refused similar advances and was killed a few days later. Terrified, the mother grabbed her daughters and fled.

They trekked nearly 2,000 miles through Guatemala and Mexico, finally getting to the U.S.-Mexico border, where, as the mom put it, they thought they had finally arrived into the arms of a compassionate nation.

We were sitting inside a trailer that had originally been set up as an influx facility to accommodate the massive hiring of U.S. Border Patrol agents after 9/11 at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico.

On that day, armed officers were sitting a few feet away from us in the brightly lit room filled with other women and children, sitting at small tables or on the floor.

It was the summer of 2014 and, like now, we were seeing a large number of Central American families from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala fleeing from insufferable conditions and seeking safety at our southern border.

The Obama administration responded by converting these make-shift barracks into a family detention center that could hold up to 800 women and children.

I was there helping interpret for civil rights attorneys who were taking declarations from Honduran, Guatemalan and Salvadoran women who had experienced abuse and due process violations at the hands of Border Patrol agents.

Instead of welcoming arms, Border Patrol agents arrested her family and then shoved them into a cold holding cell, telling them they were going to be deported back right away.

They were forced to sleep on concrete floors, drawing as much warmth as they could from a thin mylar sheet.

The lights were on 24/7 and there was little to no privacy when they needed to use the bathroom behind a short wall in the same holding cell.

At no time had they been asked by agents why they had come to the U.S. or whether or not they feared returning to Honduras.

Some of the questions we asked included whether or not she had sought police protection in Honduras, which prompted the mother to talk about how the police was ineffective in dealing with the gangs and were often in cahoots with them.

She then reached across and held her daughter’s hand, paused and said that even if police were willing to help, they probably wouldn’t because her daughter was a lesbian and they had failed to respond to the murder of her “best friend.”

It didn’t take long to note the intersectionality of our social justice movements.

For nearly 2 decades, I have been an activist for immigrant, border and LGBTQ rights, but this was the 1st time I came face-to-face with the courage and profound hope of a young family seeking a better life and whose story stood at an intersection of oppression.

Since that time, I have seen many examples of this courage. And, through this work, I have also seen the intersections of oppression that rob people, including children, of their dignity, well-being and, sometimes, their lives.

Just as the LGBTQ community has been criminalized to rob us of our rights, freedom and dignity, so have immigrant and refugee communities.

In spite of the fact that humans have migrated since the beginning of time, we have treated refugees seeking safety at our southern border – many of whom are members of the LGBTQ community – poorly.

Under this administration, anti-immigrant policies have gotten exponentially worse. They’ve been denied entry, locked up in overcrowded and unsanitary cells for days, provided inadequate or untimely medical attention, which has resulted in 6 child deaths since last November, and sent back to Mexican northern cities to await their immigration hearings for months if not years.

Another despicable practice has been “metering,” which forces thousands of people to put their name on a list and wait in Mexico before they can even apply for asylum at our ports of entry.

In desperation, many attempt to cross at places that put their lives at risk, as witnessed recently with the deaths of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, 25, and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria.

For the LGBTQ community, waiting in Mexico exposes them to violence and larger threats to their lives, because there are few welcoming services and shelters.

When I worked for a civil rights group in New Mexico, we met regularly with immigrants at the Otero County Processing Center near Chaparral, New Mexico, to assess whether detainees were treated humanely and not held indefinitely.

We would also file complaints with Immigration and Customs Enforcement because transgender women were placed in isolation cells for their so-called “protection.”

This is the same facility where Johana Medina Leon, a transgender woman, recently did not receive adequate medical care, resulting in her death.

Under this administration, we experience daily assaults on the LGBTQ, immigrant, people of color, people with disabilities, Muslim and Jewish communities.

The assaults have been normalized by a president who uses discriminatory rhetoric and criminalizes people to make it more acceptable to bring harm and abuse against us. Let’s not forget what he said about Mexicans during his campaign.

As a woman, immigrant, lesbian, Mexican-U.S. dual national and border community member, I understand these intersections well.

My hope is that one day our border communities are recognized for what they are: a place of encounter, hope and opportunity.

In short, we need a New Border Vision that demands good border governance that expands public safety for all, considers human life and human rights paramount, and is welcoming to border residents and newcomers.

How philanthropy can help

Funders can support the New Border Vision by:

• Funding organizations advocating for Congress to stop funding Trump’s anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ agenda and to put forth policies that become a model for good border governance.

• Supporting Southern Border Communities Coalition’s efforts to bring the voices of border communities to Washington, D.C., to put a human face on the effects of hyper-militarization of our home and to demand a whole-of-society and whole-of-government response to the humanitarian crisis we are witnessing at our border.

At the end of the day, our communities must firmly stand against all the intersections of oppression. We are stronger when we are together.

Vicki B. Gaubeca, who lives in Tucson, Arizona, is the director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, which brings together rights organizations from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, to promote policies and solutions that improve the quality of life of border communities and newcomers. Follow @SBCCoalition and @NCRP on Twitter.