The immigrant advocacy organization Make the Road Connecticut is banding together with four-other state-based chapters to make up the new national arm of the organization.
Make the Road States aims to lead nationwide campaigns and organizing efforts for the rights and lives of immigrant communities. It comprises the state-level Make the Road organizations in Connecticut, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York.
The launch was announced just days before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, so that the new organization is in place to respond to the immigration plans of his administration, according to Co-Executive Director of Make the Road States Theo Oshiro.
“Trump has talked about not only erasing entire communities, and in particular immigrant communities,” Oshiro said. “In the wake of the inauguration, we believe that it's important not to back down in the face of authoritarianism. What we need to do is build people-powered organizations and people power to be able to combat these attacks.”
Focusing on federal policy
Trump’s return to office makes it a critical time for Make the Road to have a national platform, according to Make the Road Connecticut Director Barbara Lopez.
“How beautiful will it be bringing all our local states into a national platform and seeing that national leadership?” Lopez said. “There's a lot of value to having this national voice now.”
Make the Road States will be able to organize national campaigns and fight against legislative bills on Capitol Hill with the voices of local people from states across the country, she said.
That work is already happening in Washington DC, Oshiro said. There are policies that are already moving through Congress that Make the Road States is opposing because of the impacts they would have on immigrant communities, he said.
The Laken Riley Act is one example. The bill would mandate the detainment of undocumented immigrants who are accused of theft of more than $100, which supporters say would help expand deportations. Critics are concerned it would also grant state officials authority to sue the federal immigration judges over decisions to release certain immigrants.
“When we have states, particularly anti-immigrant states, weaponized and being able to sue the government on immigration, we know that that has dire effects on our ability to really do anything at the federal level on immigration,” Oshiro said. “We’re paying attention to it and making sure that legislators are hearing from all of our states.”
Apart from policy, Oshiro said Make the Road States is also ensuring that the state chapters are equipped with reliable and accurate information for their immigrant communities and working to promote civic engagement among those communities.
Make the Road CT readies for action
In Connecticut, Director Lopez said her chapter has already been working to protect local immigrant communities. Throughout last year, Lopez said they’ve been in strategic planning mode. After the election, they put those plans to action.
Those plans include know-your-rights training, campaign work, and community outreach. They’ve also relaunched a program in which volunteers are trained to accompany people with active immigration cases to appointments with immigration officials or court hearings.
“They volunteer to get trained up [on] how to be good allies, to accompany whoever has a check in or open case, so they can feel safe and they can feel heard, and then if anything does happen, they can respond quickly and activate our network,” Lopez said.
The community has been actively working to learn how to identify misinformation on social media and how to keep loved ones informed if they are detained, she said.
“The community is very disappointed in the election results, but they also understand that it's only going to be four years. They understand that they need to be prepared and ready,” she said.
For Oshiro, the launch of the national organization sends a strong message of unity.
“We want to make sure that the Trump administration understands that he will face people power and the voices of regular community members, who understand that immigrants actually add so much to this country, not only to the culture and the economy, but just to the making of the country itself,” he said.
With the five states coming together under Make the Road States, Lopez said that message is loud and clear.
“All these five states have different landscapes and different ways of seeing,” she said, “but once we get together and reunited, I get a sense of the message that we're powerful and that we're going to protect our people, and that our voices matter.”
