Let's Talk About the Rapidly Changing Immigration Landscape

Several people standing with their arms around each other, photo taken from behind, so that the composition is a tangle of backs and arms.

We fight for one another as a family, because we are.

There is so much happening - both the violence of our world and how we are resisting with love. We know when things change quickly, we act with urgent indignation and sometimes lose track of how to listen to what the landscape of our communities need. And if we and our families are directly impacted by these policies, it’s so hard to figure out where to put our energy, how much to risk and even how to get through the day.

Join us this Sunday, March 4th at 8pm ET/5pm PT for a timely conversation we're calling Marching Forth: Our Immigration Justice Landscape.

Here at Love Resists we know some things to be true

  • No matter what is happening at the Supreme Court, the 9th circuit court or Congress and the White House, our work is to strengthen our local connections, knit them strong, humbly listen to what is needed and figure out how to say yes.
  • When things change quickly, it’s an opportunity to strengthen our own spiritual muscles to handle messiness, uncertainty, and change.
  • We have and can grow what we need to keep ourselves and each other safe - to expand the ways we create and share resources within our communities.

One of the interfaith anti-deportation accompaniment networks that Unitarian Universalists are part of uses these values which we are sharing in case they are of use to you:

We honor people's dignity and choices in a system that denies dignity and choice.

We expect messiness, confusion, and discomfort, and we also choose courage and trust.

We judge the system, not people.

We fight for one another as family, because we are.

We look the violence of the Supreme Court’s decision on indefinite detention of our immigrant family in the eye. We are grateful for the reprieve that allows our DACAmented community to continue to renew DACA status. We send love to those with TPS suing the administration for their rights. To Black immigrant organizers on the frontlines who affirm racial disparities within detention and deportation. And we know that people with DACA and TPS and all 11 million of our undocumented family, including folks in Sanctuary in faith communities, deserve dignity and protection.

Want to talk more? Please join us THIS SUNDAY, March 4th at 8pm ET/5pm PT before the March 5th DACA deadline to ask questions and learn more about the shifting immigration justice landscape. RSVP here. And mark your calendars for our March 27th 7pm EST webinar on ICE and Court Accompaniment.

Our communities are under attack and we are resisting in many ways. TPS, DACA, Sanctuary – things change fast and we have to sort out how to really listen to what is needed from us. Join Katia Hansen of UU Refugee & Immigrant Services & Education (UURISE) and UUCSJ Program Leader Marissa Gutiérrez-Vicario for an informal conversation to help understand what is happening, how we can live our values and what folks most impacted are asking from us.

Ready to march forth in body or spirit?

Gather in solidarity with the *Enough Political Games: Protect Immigrant Youth Now!* Day of Action on Monday, March 5. If you can make it to Washington D.C., sign up and share the event page. If you are called to participate in civil disobedience or provide moral or legal support to those who do, volunteers are needed.

Wherever you are on March 5, there is a way for you to take meaningful action. Love Resists campaign partners the UndocuBlack Network led a prophetic civil disobedience action at House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office this week, calling for a clean Dream Act and protections for TPS and DED holders and the Diversity Visa. They are asking all of us to call 202-225-3031 to remind Speaker Ryan that you support these programs too. Let leaders in Congress know you are with our immigrant communities, and we will fight together