Since August 2018, nearly 50 immigrant movement leaders from around the country have been involved in the Immigrant Movement Visioning Process. In conversation with many allies and partners, we found widespread agreement that our movement is not guided by a shared, proactive, affirmative long-term vision, or a ‘North Star.’ We also recognized that we rarely make the time to step back from the day to day work to build that long-term vision together.

We set out to imagine what the world we’re fighting for would look like. We wanted to look far enough into the future to imagine a world not entirely constrained by today’s political realities.

We felt it was crucial to outline a bold vision that was affirmative and not bound by the current political and policy reality nor by the attacks against immigrant communities and many other poor and working class communities. We also wanted to outline our dreams and hopes for immigrant and all communities in the long term. Finally, we sought to articulate a vision that inspires our allies and communities to help us conceive a better world for today’s children, youth, their families and loved ones, as well as future generations.

This vision illustrates the long-term changes we want to see in society, and the guiding values that we believe are necessary for our movement to embody in order to achieve the fundamental transformation for which we’re fighting.

We know that our movement is deep, diverse, committed, and persistent, and we know we need all of us to pursue a bold vision for our communities. We know there are many effective, inspiring and visionary organizations, campaigns, and efforts spanning organizing, policy advocacy, and political engagement. We know all of these are crucial to help us get there, and we hope the ‘open-source’ resources and documents generated through the Immigrant Movement Visioning Process will be useful tools.

• Where are we now?
• What will help us grow together and what core values guide us?
• Where do we want to go? What will change look like in 25 or more years?
• How will we get there?

National organizations that were part of the DACA/Dream Act Campaign in 2018 came together to debrief and evaluate our collective efforts in this legislative fight. As a result of the debrief there was alignment on the need to create a movement space for reflection, conversation, and collaboration for the future. As a follow up from the debrief, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), United We Dream (UWD), and Center for Community Change & Fair Immigration Reform Movement (CCC/FIRM) recommended working with consultants Helen Kim and Monica Regan to develop a process for our movement to build and strengthen relationships, increase our learning and develop a blueprint for our collective vision.

NILC, UWD, and CCC/FIRM volunteered to be initial members of a design team and determined to expand it to ensure that the planning process was reflective and representative of our values, expertise, and communities. Lorella Praeli from American Civil Liberties Union (she is now the President of Community Change Action), Suman Raghunathan who was with South Asians American Leading Together (SAALT), Frank Sharry from America’s Voice (AV), and Angie Kelley were invited and agreed to join the design team. The design team extended invitations to the goals for the overall process and plan the retreats and learning calls with the support of consultants. An executive committee was formed to lead fundraising and manage the overall process.

These documents were generated to be used and are available documents for broad use. We encourage and hope these are useful to communities and organizations. We hope this document will be a helpful starting point to energize, deepen and enrich many individuals’ and organizations’ efforts overall.

The Vision and Values document and the resources housed on the website are intended to serve as ‘open-source’ materials to inspire individuals in our communities and indeed across America with an articulation of what justice for immigrants and communities as a whole would look like. We hope that at this moment of intense and perhaps unprecedented attacks on immigrant communities, sharing a ‘North Star’ of what our communities deserve and need will support stronger organizing and base-building on the ground and advance other broader efforts to build and secure justice for immigrants.

Other than making these resources available to organizations that were part of the cohort and other organizations, we have not yet determined what, if anything, comes next for the Immigrant Movement Visioning Process.

This document was released at its organic point of production. We invite the consideration of these ideas for a more just and equitable tomorrow.

Our invitation to all who see themselves in the Vision and Values documents is to engage with their contents as a continuous practice for your communities, interests and lives. While the production of a vision and values document or resource has ended here, we encourage building, engaging and exploring for versions that will work for your specific needs.

As of now, there is not an on-going process with the cohort that developed the vision and values.

The Vision and Values document and the resources housed on the website are intended to serve as ‘open-source’ materials to inspire individuals in our communities and indeed across America with an articulation of what justice for immigrants and the native-born would look like. We hope that at this moment of intense and perhaps unprecedented attacks on immigrant communities, sharing a ‘North Star’ of what our communities deserve and need will support stronger organizing and base-building on the ground and advance other broader efforts to build and secure justice for immigrants.

Other than making these resources available to organizations that were part of the cohort and other organizations, we have not yet determined what, if anything, comes next for the Immigrant Movement Visioning Process.

The vision is an offering that articulates what we long for in our shared future, grounded in the belief that all people have inherent dignity and value. Having imagined this ‘North Star,’ we now have the equally challenging work to develop a roadmap of how we will build greater political power, change the culture and narrative, develop a policy platform, benchmarks, strategies, and other next steps to help us get closer to achieving our proactive vision for freedom, dignity, and our collective wellbeing.

This vision and values are not intended to be a policy platform or a strategy document. It is one offering of a ‘North Star’ from a group of leaders, and there are different roads to reach that destination. Some may envision free movement zones similar to what exists now in the EU. Some may envision an intelligently regulated system that embodies the freedom to move and the freedom to stay. A just world should include equal opportunities for all of us to thrive.

This vision is grounded in acknowledgement of our country’s worst history and best impulses. We are a settler-colonial nation, founded with the lofty ideals of liberty and equality set against the twin evils of genocide and slavery. To this day, white supremacy and patriarchy infect almost every institution and system in our lives. We know that we cannot strive for transformation without joining the fights to end white supremacy and patriarchy in the country we call home.

We envision a world in which we are centering people. We want the U.S. to be a society in which all people – regardless of where they are born – are able to live a life of freedom, dignity, safety, and belonging.