Dear Friends, A backlash on human and civil rights is unfolding as we head into the 2024 elections. State by state a historic burst of legislation threatens the human rights of people of color, migrants, and the LGBTQ+ community. In 2021 and 2022 alone, nearly half of the states passed more than three dozen laws that make it more difficult to vote, and this year more than 500 anti-trans bills were introduced across the country. States such as Florida and Texas are passing laws that are so regressive, crucial industries are facing worker shortages as migrants fearing deportation are leaving the state. Moreover, efforts to ban books with themes centered on LGBTQ+ or racial inequality doubled in the last year. Meanwhile, at the national level, legislators are focused on eroding access to life-saving protections within the asylum system. At the border, the intersecting crises of violence, poverty, and militarism have led to more human rights abuses and death. Just last month, our communities mourned the loss of eight migrants who were struck and killed by an SUV, and the death of an 8-year-old girl in Border Patrol custody. This adds to the fifty migrants who perished in a trailer in San Antonio, Texas, and the nearly 9,000 human remains that have been found along the U.S.-Mexico border. It will get worse before it gets better. But in the words of Septima Clark, the great human and civil rights activist, “whenever there is chaos, it creates wonderful thinking.” At this moment of loss and chaos, NNIRR is moving forward with intention. And, we need your support! This summer NNIRR is hosting the BRIDGE Institutes for Human Rights Leadership, a series of trainings at the intersection of migration, labor, racial, gender, climate, and environmental injustices. Our aim is to create platforms for collective thinking and action, and train a new generation of rights defenders and educators along the U.S.-Mexico Border. Please donate to NNIRR, your support will help: - Strengthen rights-based organizing in places most impacted by militarization, poverty, and other forms of violence.
- Create movement-building opportunities across communities working at the intersections of migration, labor, racial, gender, climate, and environmental injustices.
- Uplift and propagate stories, models, and resources from communities living on the frontlines of racial, structural, and environmental injustices.
- Create the synergies between ongoing community-based organizing and electoral work.
Help us create an enabling environment for human rights , and uplift the voices of those living and working on the frontlines of these entrenched injustices by supporting the work of NNIRR. In Solidarity, The NNIRR Team |
