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John,
I wanted to say thank you for the overwhelming support we have received since announcing the merger between New American Economy and the American Immigration Council.
As the new Executive Director, I can't wait to show you how the Council will be better equipped than ever before to lead newcomers on the journey from arrival to belonging.
We're in this for the long haul—and would be honored if you joined us on this journey too.
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Thank you again for your support.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Robbins, Executive Director
Dear John,
It is my great pleasure to join the American Immigration Council as its newest Executive Director. The Council has long played a central role in advancing and championing the rights and opportunities for immigrants in America, and its work has never been more important for this country and for the immigration reform movement.
The incredible work of the Council would not be possible without the thousands upon thousands of stakeholders and supporters who join us every day in this fight. I feel incredibly fortunate for the opportunity to join you in your efforts.
I spent the last decade helping found and lead New American Economy [[link removed]] , an immigration think tank and advocacy organization working from the ground up in the newest immigrant gateway communities to build a more inclusive America. Through our think tank and projects like MapTheImpact [[link removed]] and the NAE Cities Index [[link removed]] , we sought to quantify the impact immigrants are having in every single community across the country and to measure the success communities were having in welcoming and integrating newcomers. Through our state and local policy work, in conjunction with groups such as Welcoming America, we have helped more than 100 communities across the country actively invest in helping immigrants learn English, obtain citizenship, find jobs, start new businesses, and get access to necessary legal services. And through our innovative arts and culture work we used music, comedy, art, and literature to reach new audiences for discussions on the value diverse perspectives add to American culture. These are perspectives and tools that I'm delighted to bring to the Council to help build on the incredible body of work the Council is leading.
The headwinds facing migrants around the world are only growing, and the tools we’ve had at our disposal just aren’t enough on their own. We need to supplement them by looking broadly, not just outside of immigration but outside of advocacy, public policy, and the nonprofit world, to find additional approaches that give us the tools, the scale, and the power to successfully modernize our immigration policy in a way that is humane, fair, and true to America’s core values.
I believe our field needs to evolve and innovate, that it’s time to reimagine our work in a way that helps us best serve newcomers while rebuilding a bipartisan and constructive case for what immigration means for America.
I'm pleased to announce a very big stride in expanding the Council's footprint and scale to better serve immigrants and the communities they settle in. At the end of this year, we will integrate the power, people and programs of the New American Economy into the American Immigration Council to create an even more powerful entity with the potential to have far more impact than either entity could on its own.
In our new incarnation, the American Immigration Council will be able to help support newcomers from the moment they arrive in America to the moment they are sworn in as American citizens. Combining the talents, strategies, networks, and programs of the American Immigration Council and New American Economy will allow us to ensure that immigrants have robust due process rights, that they have real and meaningful access to counsel to exert those rights, that they are supported in their path to succeed economically, socially, and politically in whatever community they settle in, and that the communities that welcome them are ready and equipped to do so fully.
It’s rare that nonprofits merge, but it shouldn't be. We can do more together, we can better create efficiencies, innovate, and cross-pollinate our work, and we can better support the immigrants and leaders on the ground across the country who are making belonging possible. We will be able to create virtuous cycles between state and federal policy, reach different audiences, and tackle the issues that arise on immigration with a variety of tools in our toolkit.
As a country and as a movement we face many obstacles ahead. But together, with all of your support, we're better prepared to make progress on behalf of immigrants than we've ever been before. We are grateful to have you all in our corner and look forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with you all.
Thank you for believing in us. I look forward to getting to work with each of you.
Hear more about our vision here:
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