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Visit this page to download GCIR's new policy state of play report that lays out key developments in immigration policy during the first 100 days of the new administration along with opportunities to support the organizations and networks carrying out essential work at the local, state, and national levels.
As I reflect on what brings me to this work, I am reminded that these roots run deep. As a Puerto Rican brought up in the United States, I was raised with an awareness of our nation’s history of colonialism and at times violent intervention in Latin America and beyond. I saw how the U.S. government had fought to ensure that the political and economic arrangements in Latin American countries suited its own interests, while then abdicating responsibility for the resulting destabilization.
As a native-born U.S. citizen working in the movement for immigrant justice, I often reflect on what brought me to this work out of the many social justice issues that demand our attention. Navigating the immigration system alongside my wife who immigrated from Albania to pursue her dreams of a better future opened my eyes to the complex and often challenging immigrant experience in America.
While there has been a long history of efforts to erase and exclude immigrants, BIPOC, and other marginalized communities, this timeline shows how powerfully communities in Texas have resisted. From Indigenous nations fighting to preserve their culture to BIPOC communities organizing to end the criminalization of Black and Brown lives, people have sought to protect their freedom to move, stay, work, and thrive.