The goal of the New Americans Campaign is to help 500,000 – out of the 9 million Green Card holders who are eligible – become citizens by 2021, the Campaign’s 10th anniversary. There are many barriers and obstacles to meeting this ambitious aim, but Melissa Rodgers and her colleagues at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, together with the Campaign’s non-profit partners across the country, are forging ahead with courage, empathy, and wicked smarts! Join us for a conversation about the current state of immigration in the US and why it’s so important that we reform this broken system.
Melissa Rodgers, Director of Programs, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, and Director of the New Americans Campaign
Show Highlights:
- How difficult it is to become a naturalized citizen of the US, even when you’re eligible
- The ways the Trump Administration is making it even more difficult
- The systemic cruelty of our immigration system
- How community is a protective factor when facing such cruelty
- Law as a collaborative profession and co-creation
- The New Americans Campaign’s 5 principles for doing this difficult work
- How the New Americans Campaign quadrupled their network of local non-profit partners across the country
- The profound benefits of equality under the law
- What can happen when we believe something is really doable
- Why, for many people, immigration is literally a matter of life and death
Links:
New Americans Campaign https://www.newamericanscampaign.org/
Stories From New Americans: https://www.newamericanscampaign.org/from-new-americans/
Immigrant Legal Resource Center: https://www.ilrc.org/
Brava! Melissa Rodgers for Director of U.S. Immigration.
This is an ethical and humane endeavor. I am pleased to see that organizations and individuals are able to help others in their pursuit of a stable, fruitful existence in the USA!
Is the organization involved in ending family separation practices at the Mexican/US border as well? It is a cruel practice that I compare with the evil of the Holocaust.
Thank you so much for listening. Yes, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center is also involved in ending family separation through our anti-criminalization work at the local, state, and national level and through technical assistance in individual cases. In this work, too, we engage in partnership with many other organizations. We are also experts in issues involving immigrant youth, and you can find out more about that work on our website at: https://www.ilrc.org/immigrant-youth.