How We Will Advocate

Our target audience includes (1) undocumented immigrants, (2) advocates and potential advocates of policy reform, and (3) policy makers.  These are the key stakeholders who can affect policy change.  These three stakeholders each affect each other in this topic for several reasons. The undocumented immigrants are those most directly effected by this topic but also hold the least amount of power compared to the other two stakeholders due to lack of legality, rights, and the ability to vote to make change. Since undocumented immigrants are unable to vote, this is where the advocates and potential advocates of policy reforms come in to support them. Advocates can vote to make change and in turn put pressure on policy makers to make change from a legal standpoint. Policy makers are the most affective at making change as they hold the power to directly make reform, however it is up to the other two stakeholders to make their voices heard to the policy makers. Specifically, to raise awareness about current human rights violations, we will post relevant information on our blog and Facebook.  To identify and petition lawmakers, we will do outreach through email about proposed policy change.  Additionally, we will use Twitter to directly mention relevant issues for undocumented immigrants to presidential candidates.  To promote local state resources for immigrants and their programming, we will disseminate information through our blog.  Additionally, we will post this information to Facebook to help make this information go viral. 

The main advocacy tool that we will use is this blog.  To increase awareness and traffic to the blog, we will utilize other social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook.  We believe that using social media tools will be very effective in supporting our e-advocacy campaign.  It allows for us to reach many people with a variety of backgrounds.  Both Facebook and Twitter allow for sharing articles and multimedia content, which can spark activism and spread in a short amount of time.  This will allow us to begin a dialogue on social media and create buy-in from people about why immigration rights and policy reform are important.  Usage of Twitter allows for direct outreach to presidential candidates.  Increased attention and visibility in the very public realm of social media makes it more likely for even the most famous individuals to respond verbally and/or with action.

We will also reach out to organizations like the nonprofit, Immigration Advocates network (http://www.immigrationadvocates.org/nonprofit/), through organizations like this we can receive support for our cause and have a contact to locate local organizations within our state to educate and then advocate. United We Dream (http://unitedwedream.org/groups/) also connects people with local groups within their community and by even posting a link to this site on our blog will give people more awareness in their area especially if they are not from the east coast area. These sites will help advocates reach other like-minded individuals to organize and then hopefully help both undocumented immigrants and then move onto changing and influencing policy makers.

While the policy makers technically have the most impact over creating change, advocates play a large role as well.  Increasing awareness in the general population is one part of achieving immigration reform.  When advocates hold policy makers accountable for gross human rights violations, change can also be affected.  If and when immigration reform is not being enacted, it is up to the advocates to demand a plan and change.  This too can drive policy change. Overall, this work should help the lives of undocumented immigrants in educating both advocates and policy makers in how they consider and treat these individuals.

Addressing Gaps in Immigration Reform

To better support the human rights of illegal immigrants in the United States, we need to address the stigma surrounding the illegal immigrants and the laws that positively and negatively affect these immigrants and the U.S. as a whole.  To do that, we will (1) raise awareness about current human rights violations to illegal immigrants through our blog; (2) identify and petition our law-makers through email about effective immigration reform; (3) identify local state resources for immigrants and promote their programming through the blog; and (4) raise awareness of immigration issues in regards to the upcoming presidential election.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans

Millions in limbo as DACA/DAPA case winds through courts
As of August 15, 2012 President Obama announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which allows undocumented immigrants who came to the US under the age of 16 and have been here since 2007 to receive work authorization and even drivers licenses in some states. The Deferred Action for Parents for Americans (DAPA) which was introduced in 2014, along with DACA both provide a temporary deferment to deportation of illegal immigrants. However 26 states have filed a legal challenge putting the acts on hold for now.

Response to DACA Varies
Even though the expansions to DACA have not yet been approved or deemed lawful, the original program which was introduced in 2012 still faces challenges and often on a state-by-state basis.

Family Detention Centers

Pressure to Stop the Practice of Placing Undocumented Immigrants in Detention Centers

This article gives attention to a practice that clearly deprives undocumented immigrants of basic human rights.  While many are focused on the Obama administration's fight in court defending executive action taken to protect undocumented immigrants, pressure is building to stop placing undocumented immigrants in family detention centers.  This practice may not be well known to us East Coasters, however California residents have been protesting the practice.

This court case has brought increased attention to the jail-like conditions where children and mothers, some pregnant, have been kept.  The Department of Justice's defense highlighted that undocumented immigrants are essentially not entitled to protections of the first amendment.