Publication

On the Right Side of History

Abstract

This has been an exhausting yet energizing few weeks. Our LZC team has been out in community away from our computers more than usual as we collectively reckon with these challenging times and stand with our immigrant sisters and brothers. Here are just a few examples:

  • We spoke alongside other experts in a social medicine class at Harvard Medical School to students who looked shell-shocked about our current policy environment, sharing the many ways that healthcare providers and institutions are creating policies to protect their patients and staff.

Being in community with immigrant leaders and pro-immigrant allies is critical in these times. We must keep communication channels open and speak up about what we are seeing around us. We all have a role to play in creating the communities we believe in. As scholar-activists, we feel reflective and rejuvenated. Here are a few of our collective thoughts as we shuffle to stand on the right side of history:

  1. “Be the hope.” MIRA’s keynote speaker Guerline Jozef embodied strength and hope. She is a nationally recognized Haitian-American human rights activist and co-founder and Executive Director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, an organization that works at the U.S.-Mexico border. She warned us that we must not lose hope during this oppressive time—that when we lose hope, oppression wins. In many ways, Ms. Jozef was speaking to “the choir,” a room full of Massachusetts-based immigrant leaders who have dedicated their lives to walking with their communities through displacement, violence, migration journeys, discrimination, detention, and deportation, and allies who strive to walk in solidarity and mobilize resources and power for equity. But we needed to hear this from her. She charged us to “be the hope” and asked, “What are we willing to do?”
  2. The systematic dismantling of immigrants’ and other groups’ rights is not an isolated or new approach. During the LZC Coffee Chat on Intersectionality, Fatema Ahmad, the Executive Director of the Muslim Justice League, walked us through the history of surveillance and Islamophobia in the United States, and how we got to where we are today—how the same tools used to surveil the Muslim community post-9/11 are not only still being used but have been expanded to many other Brown and Black immigrants. We talked about the idea that Intersectionality is deeply tied not only to ourselves and our identities, but also to institutions and structures. The systems we have work for some, but not all. While today they may be targeting immigrants—undocumented immigrations, student visa holders, and green card holders—we are all at risk of losing our fundamental rights if we do not resist the increasing normalization of ignoring due process and scapegoating of certain groups.
  3. Let’s change the narrative. At Boston’s State of the City 2025, immigrants were uplifted as integral members of the community, full of hope, ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and grit. That’s the polar opposite of the harmful narratives coming out of Washington—falsehoods and tropes that dehumanize immigrants and distract from the real threat to public safety: corporate greed. In part, that’s why we’re so excited to dig into narratives with MIRA through a two-year Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded research project to develop and test pro-immigrant narratives.
  4. Engage in creative, collective resistance. At the State of the City, Mayor Michelle Wu, who recently testified before Congress, reiterated the promise that “we will defend the people we love with all that we’ve got.” We’re seeing beautiful examples of that collective resistance all around us, with cities like Somerville and Chelsea standing up to the Trump administration’s deportation schemes; faith communities hosting Know Your Rights workshops for leaders and congregants; over 2,000 people gathering to demand Rumeysa Ozturk’s release; and doctors and advocates banding together to protect immigrant patients’ rights.

We invite and encourage you to get involved in any way that is feasible and safe for you. Whether it is calling your legislators to advocate for one of MIRA’s legislative priorities for 2025 (listed below), donating to a pro-immigrant group, or spending your Saturday afternoon at a rally, this is not the time to be silent and comfortable. There are too many historical parallels. Researchers are trained to observe, listen, and analyze. But we don’t need formal research training to recognize what’s in plain sight. We all need to keep our eyes wide open.

MIRA’s 2025 policy advocacy priorities:

  • Safe Communities Act would prohibit questioning by court and police officials about immigration status, protect basic rights, protect access to justice in our courts, and prohibit agreements that deputize local officials as federal immigration agents.
  • Immigrant Legal Defense Act would create a public and private-funded program to provide no-cost immigration legal defense to immigrants in Massachusetts who are at imminent risk of deportation.
  • Dignity Not Deportations Act would prohibit Massachusetts entities from voluntarily renting beds to ICE, as well as prohibit Massachusetts entities from donating time and volunteering state resources to ICE by signing contracts that deputize local officials as ICE agents.
  • Cover All Kids would remove immigration status as a barrier to full MassHealth coverage for children and young adults under the age of 21 who live in Massachusetts. Twelve other states have already passed similar policies.
  • Language Access and Inclusion Act would ensure effective communication for all communities, standardize and enforce robust language access plans, ensure adequate staffing to meet language access needs, engage communities to assist agencies with compliance, and create mechanisms for phased-in implementation.