Our Core Values

What values guide us?

Throughout the Immigrant Movement Visioning Process, we recognized that dreaming our long-term vision is only the beginning of the journey. Equally important is a transformation of our movement for immigrant justice. We developed a core set of values that we are committing to in order to embody the changes we want to see in society. Living these values is not passive; it requires intention, practice, reflection, and courage.

Love

We must live our daily lives with a love of humanity and compassion as driving forces for justice and build a more equitable and just society for everyone—including those who may not agree with us. We reject hatred and violence against our communities. We are committed to doing our own personal healing of life traumas and growing so that we can be healthy and whole persons in our families, institutions, communities, and movements.

Equity

This country was founded on systems of oppression and white supremacy designed to deny the power and voices of people of color, especially Black and indigenous peoples, therefore we must unite and build power across race, gender, gender identity, geography, and class. We are committed to equity based on racial, ethnic, economic, and gender justice, and religious freedom. This requires building equity into existing campaign or other movement structures, especially so that there is collective leadership by those who are directly impacted, and that the movement speaks the multitude of their languages. It also requires a personal, organizational commitment to counter an anti-Blackness and become an anti-racist movement.

Trust & Respect

Just as our vision is people-centered, we must center our relationships with each other so that we build a strong and healthy ecosystem. It is critical that we treat each other with dignity and respect. We must develop strong communication skills and practice radical candor—reaching out to each other directly, especially in moments of tension or disagreement. We are committed to do the work to have healthier and stronger relationships, and will prioritize having difficult conversations in a timely manner. We embrace respectful differences and disagreements as we strive for consensus. We will endeavor to build internal democracy.

Solidarity

An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us, and we refuse to be pitted against each other. We endeavor to practice radical cooperation, taking time to communicate, strategize, and build alignment around our goals. We are committed to naming the lens and bias that is informing our work, bringing humility and honesty about what we do not know, and being open to challenging our own assumptions and learning from one another. We embrace a discipline of developing the skills necessary to communicate and collaborate.

Leaderful Movement That Centers Directly Impacted People

Core to our vision has been a deep commitment to centering the leadership and expertise of impacted people with lived experiences. This includes ensuring that organizations with directly impacted individuals are well-resourced. We recognize citizenship does not fully protect you from the harms of the current immigration and criminal systems, and that the harm is felt by families, loved ones, co-workers, and communities as a whole. We are committed to leadership development for the leaders of tomorrow and to developing a leaderful movement in which young people and all those impacted are building power and participating fully in democracy, and are taking action in furtherance of our vision.

Courage, Creativity, and Discipline

With honesty about the conditions we are facing, we are committed to taking risks and putting ourselves on the line, speaking truth to power. These times call for creative solutions and new ways of organizing, advocating, and building power. We are a learning community. We endeavor to be courageous and vigilant about our own blind spots and challenging ourselves and each other us to breakthrough our own limiting perspectives and habits. We are committed to bringing a ‘beginner’s mind’ and constantly asking questions and deeply listening to learn. Our communities deserve our rigor and discipline in conducting our work and therefore we strive to follow through with our commitments to the work, each other, and the communities we serve.

Global Awareness and Engagement

We live in a world that is interconnected and interdependent. We are committed to widening the lens of our awareness and mutual education. We are committed to a sustainable planet and global community, and to shifting our individual, institutional, and societal behaviors and practices that result in drivers of migration, climate change, and economic inequality such as consumerism and militarism. We are committed to holding accountable those corporate actors that profit from extraction of natural resources, worker exploitation, mass incarceration and other harms to our community. We are committed to building a democracy that is vibrant and participatory, where policymakers are held accountable, and helps us secure and exercise our freedoms. We recognize the impact of the US in the world, and commit to contributing to a more balanced, equitable, and just planet.

The full Vision and Values Statement can be downloaded here (PDF).