Build community power to resist deportations

We face a difficult road ahead. The United States has ended an election cycle dominated by racist fear-mongering against immigrants with the election of a candidate promising mass deportations. The national climate of xenophobia is felt everywhere: one vigilante in a Vermont border town, for example, has recently become a local celebrity by documenting himself detaining groups of migrants and boasting on social media. 

Trump’s return to the White House will bring untold suffering to Migrant Justice’s community of immigrant farmworkers and to immigrant families around the country. Yet we are no strangers to discrimination, deportations, and the separation of families. Even before the election, Border Patrol had drastically increased its presence in the area, leading to more detentions of farmworkers, while ICE flaunted its own rules to deny due process and deport families. The criminalization of immigrant communities will take a new form, but it is not new.

Support immigrant farmworkers organizing to resist criminalization and deportation. Donate to Migrant Justice today!

Over the past fifteen years, we have built a powerful organization capable of withstanding the coming challenges. When ICE targeted Migrant Justice – arresting and deporting our leaders, surveilling the organization and sowing disinformation, even planting informants in community meetings – we fought back. We took to the streets to demand the release of detained members, built coalitions to pressure government agencies, and successfully sued the Trump administration. Migrant Justice won a reprieve from deportation for targeted leaders and the recognition of constitutional protections for immigrants organizing to defend their rights.

We have continued to build community power to resist deportation. Border Patrol agents detained farmworker Ambrocio Rojas outside a grocery store. After being freed on bond, Ambrocio led the formation of the “Migrant Justice 10,” a group of members fighting for the right to remain. This year, Ambrocio won his deportation case and is now helping others to do the same.

“By working together and getting organized, I was able to stop my deportation. Don’t give up, join Migrant Justice, and keep fighting. Together we will win!”

Migrant Justice also organizes to defend and advance immigrant rights at the state level. Over the years, immigrant farmworkers and organizers wearing the trademark Migrant Justice hoodie have become a mainstay at the Vermont State House, whether we are testifying to legislators in committee rooms or addressing rallies on the steps outside.

Thanks to Migrant Justice, Vermont has become a leader in immigrant rights and an example to other states: expanding access to driver’s licenses and health care; prohibiting immigration arrests at courthouses and through police collaboration; and securing millions in equitable Covid relief. During this year’s session, the legislature approved a Migrant Justice proposal to ensure in-state tuition and need-based financial aid for immigrant students regardless of status. Eleventh grader Heidy Perez Alfaro addressed a State House crowd at the bill’s passage.

“I am here on behalf of all those students who had to end their education after high school and cut short their dreams. With this law, they will be able to go to college, study for a career, and help others.”

This past year, our long-running campaign to get local cops out of the business of deportations achieved a major victory. Overcoming fierce resistance – including a racist outburst from a sheriff deputy during the meeting of a state panel, resulting in his eventual resignation – immigrant leaders held firm and won significant improvements to state policy preventing police involvement in immigration enforcement. We closed policy loopholes added at the outset of the first Trump administration, just in time to ensure that local law enforcement will not aid in the deportation agenda of his second term.

Even as we fight back against increasing attacks, Migrant Justice will seek to stay on the offensive by proposing legislation against housing discrimination and protecting immigrants in the workplace through the expansion of our landmark Milk with Dignity Program.

Our community of immigrant farmworkers is used to an uphill battle, but we cannot do it alone. Migrant Justice owes its strength to the thousands of supporters who have contributed, time, energy, and money to advance this essential work. We invite you to join us in preparing for the struggles ahead by making a donation to Migrant Justice today.