| | Yesterday, we commemorated World Refugee Day, which feels particularly significant this year. Right now, there are more than 100 million people forcibly displaced, the most in history by a wide margin. National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) legal teams and advocates, along with many partners, are rising to meet the challenge of this historic moment. Cities around the United States have opened their arms to welcome new migrants. An impressive number of volunteers and supporters have upheld our country’s obligation to defend the human rights of people who make courageous journeys in search of safety, even as they face growing barriers. And we also honor the rich contributions immigrants and refugees make to our communities every day. Earlier this month at NIJC’s 24th Annual Human Rights Awards, we celebrated the courage, compassion, and generosity of immigrants and refugees in our communities and people who stand with them. Several people took the stage to share their stories. |
| | Donya Lali’s family fled Afghanistan in August 2021 when the United States left the country. She said, “It was not safe for us to stay. We had to leave the country and we left. I had many wishes, many things I wanted to do, but I had to forget all of that. I knew we had to suffer those days for a bright future.” She applied for asylum through a legal clinic with NIJC and the Muslim Women Resource Center, and has since worked as an interpreter at several clinics to help other Afghan people apply for asylum. “I am working hard to support my family and I have many plans for my family and myself in the future,” she said. Ms. Lali helped present the Community Change Award to Muslim Women Resource Center, which has partnered with NIJC to provide legal services to people who evacuated Afghanistan and also provides a wide range of services to refugees from around the world. We also awarded AbbVie, whose legal department has represented 14 people seeking asylum and participated in legal clinics for Afghan people. |
| | We also honored Javier Zamora, a Salvadoran poet and best-selling author of the memoir Solito and poetry collection Unaccompanied. Mr. Zamora journeyed to the United States alone in 1999 when he was just nine years old to reunite with his parents, who had fled the Salvadoran civil war. During his keynote address, he recounted, “Both of them left thinking that their time in a foreign land wasn’t gonna last more than two, three, five years max. My grandparents, who loved me and cared for me in my parent’s absence, believed my parents were gonna return. I believed my parents whenever they ended our weekly phone calls with: ‘we will come back soon mijo.’ But around 1997, that sentence changed into ‘you will soon be here with us, mijo.’” Javier told the story of his painful and traumatic seven-week journey to the United States. “For 20 years, I learned to hide the weeks it took me to make it to La USA because for most of those years I was undocumented. I couldn’t afford to have anyone ask questions about how I’d gotten here. For those 20 years, I pretended that none of the immigrants I met on the way to La USA existed, it was easier than facing them. Carrying this weight, internally, is the one true solitary tasks I’ve embarked on in my life. … And this is where you come in. … People doing the work who deserve our support. It’s people like you who are the ones I most needed when I was struggling to survive in this world after crossing the desert. It’s you who are making the lives of recent arrivals of all ages and skin colors and genders, that much better." We heard many stories of challenge and personal sacrifice, but we also heard many stories of joy and accomplishment. The Human Rights Practitioner Award was presented to Wade Thomson, a pro bono lawyer who has worked on more than 50 cases for immigrants and refugees with NIJC over the past 20 years. |
| | Mr. Thomson told the audience, “There are actual superheroes in the room. Those of course would be immigrants and refugees, who have shown amazing courage to stand up to repressive regimes, protect their children and seek for them a better future, and who have made incredible journeys in search of refuge.” Here are some ways you can honor these superheroes this week: |
|  | | Thank you for supporting immigrants and refugees! Julia Toepfer
National Immigrant Justice Center |
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| | | | | NATIONAL IMMIGRANT JUSTICE CENTER
224 S. Michigan Avenue, Suite 600 | Chicago, Illinois 60604
immigrantjustice.org |
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