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How to show up as allies to the Immigrant Rights Movement with Never Again Action

We will not end white-body supremacy - or any form of human evil - by trying to tear it to pieces. Instead, we can offer people better ways to belong and better things to belong to.

― Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts

"How can I effectively show up as an ally to the Immigrant Rights Movement?" What a task! I assume you are reading this because you interested in some intersections of the following questions:

  1. Why is our government treating immigrants (and/or other people of marginalized identities) so cruelly?
  2. What can I or my community do about it to stop it?
  3. How can I organize in a way that aligns with my values?

A note about language. In Never Again Action, we tend to use the word "ally". Other people prefer the word "accomplice." We basically mean "someone who is not directly impacted by state violence because of their particular identity."  We know that there are many people who are both allies/accomplices and directly impacted by forms of state violence within our movement. We believe that language can be useful and also limiting! If you think about it, English in and of itself is limiting. There are many words for many different ideas, experiences, and concepts in other languages that don't even exist in English. How beautiful and relieving to not need to have the perfect words. *a breath, a release of tension in the shoulders*.  For the purposes of this document, we will continue to use the word "ally." 

In general, we welcome feedback! And we welcome imperfection. We welcome growing and not knowing, we welcome doing the best we can in impossible circumstances, we welcome always trying to do a bit better. 

So we'll start there, and you'll see these themes of imperfection, not knowing, and doing the best we can while trying to do better, and harm reduction as consistent themes in our work of allyship. 

So - how do we show up well as allies in the immigrant rights movement? At Never Again Action, we believe that impactful allyship is non-linear, an ever interacting combination of the following components:

  • Political Education
  • Personal Healing
  • Community & Connection
  • Direct Action & Political Advocacy

I'm going to say these same things again, in different, maybe more detailed ways. 

Effective Allyship consists of:

  • Learning & Unlearning
    • Reading about root causes, attending workshops and webinars, deep listening to directly impacted peoples, etc.
    • Really getting at the root and understanding why the world is the way it is and how we've come to a place of so much human suffering
    • Being willing to honestly investigate and release those parts of our identity which perpetuate these harms
  • Regulating Our Own Nervous Systems
    • Discovering where personal and collective traumas and internalized systems of oppression exist within your own body, and seeking the support to find both judgment-free awareness of these reactions and experiences and ways to transmute and transform them for your own healing and the potential of the collective
  • Brave Spaces That Center Belonging, Learning, Growing
    • To share our own grief, discomfort, pain, joy, laughter, fears, uncertainties
    • We can't do this work alone. We really, really can't
    • We won't "cancel culture" our way to liberation - and everyone is bound to do this work imperfectly and need support
    • In Never Again Action, we ground in leftist Jewish ritual, culture and spirituality to support this collective transformation
  • Mitigating the harm of ICE & CBP through political activity
    • strategic campaigns
    • interfering in ICE and CBP's daily functioning
    • mutual aid & redistributing resources to those most impacted by the detention and deportation system

This is a lot! And this resource is just designed to get you started with some

  • Questions
  • Places to Start to Learning and Unlearning

Some places to start 

  • Political Education
    • Learn about the history of immigration and it’s intersections with imperialism, racial capitalism and colonialism
    • Dismantling Racism Workook
    • MORE RESOURCES COMING SOON
  • Personal Healing
  • Community & Connection
    • Join a NAA chapter or another local organizing and political home
  • Direct Action & Political Advocacy
    • Join a campaign
    • RESOURCES COMING SOON for participating as allies in immigrant-led campaigns/actions, social media for allies

Embodied tips & tricks

Really simple and straightforward, embodied tips & tricks to be in multiracial and multicultural and multi-identity spaces in ways that support collective liberation and reduce harm, specifically for people with privileges protected by the state (white and white-assimilated people, people born in the so-called United States, men and masc-presenting people, cis and cis-presenting people, people who grew up with class privilege, able-bodied people)

  • Do a little extra domestic labor 
    • help clean up
    • don't assume it's someone else's job to clean up after you
    • if you don't know what to do, ask how you can help
  • Count to ten before speaking in meeting/workshop/facilitated or non-facilitated conversation
    • Even double ask yourself "why am i talking?"
  • Do square breathing to counteract urgency in your body
    • Are you feeling frustrated that things aren't moving faster than they "should be"? Then focus on your breath. Breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, breathe out for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, breath in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds…
  • If a person with a marginalized, oppressed, targeted by the state identity is standing and you're sitting, ask them if they want your seat or if you are in front of them in a line for food, ask if they want to go first
    • counteract privilege in small, tangible, noticeable ways
  • Ask other people questions, with room to opt out - don't assume that anybody owes you an explanation or to share their own experience
    • "Totally fine if you don't want to, but I'd love to hear more about your experience or your viewpoint if you have the energy or desire to share"
    • "Can I ask more about what you said"
    • "I noticed you were really quiet during that meeting. Definitely no pressure to share, and I'd love to hear more about what was going on for you during that meeting, only if you want to share of course."
  • Receive nos with grace and gratitude
    • "Thanks so much for saying no! And thanks for letting me ask."
  • Be curious about what you feel entitled to
    • Do you feel entitled to people's stories? Time? Actions? Space?
    • If you feel hunger for more of something, this is a great time to come back to your own nervous system, to come back to curiosity, to notice that desire for something more with loving attention and to maybe softly, but sternly ask yourself, this is coming from somewhere, but who is it actually serving? Why am I entitled to this, really?
  • Don't be afraid to say, "I don't know!" or learn something new, or have your world totally rocked
    • Things are pretty bad for a reason, there's probably, definitely, a lot we don't know. 
    • Or even if you don't believe it, pretend that you know the least in the room. Treat it like a game, but don't be disparaging about it.
  • Do you feel like you are owed something because you’re “helping” them?...
    • Explore your relationship with White Saviorism. [Dead link. If anyone has a suggestion for a video that would work here, add it or comment below.]


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