Meta Narrative

Internal Use Only

Purpose of this doc

The conversation in mainstream media and in much public discourse is driven almost entirely by right-wing frameworks, painting a border under siege, and immigrants as a threat. A scarcity, fear-based mindset pervades discussions of debates around immigration within the United States. We are grounded in the fact that we must be part of providing a powerful alternative.  

NAA’s 2024 metanarrative was motivated by the knowledge that we cannot be reactionary to the horrific right-wing frameworks. Rather, we must rely on our values to provide an intersectional narrative developed from deep dives into our political education frameworks. While the center and the left have largely been reactive, we recognize the signs that this habit is beginning to shift. We sense that people are ready to embrace a vision far beyond a mere refutation of present evils–we want to be one of the voices that make up a broad, intersectional coalition offering liberatory alternatives.

Over the past year and especially since the start of 2025, we have been bombarded by escalations of fascist violence and repression on every front. Mass deportation and further criminalization of movement remains at the top of the current administration’s agenda, alongside suppression of the Palestine solidarity movement, theft of public resources by and for the billionaire class, anti-trans legislation, destruction of the planet, and broad criminalization of any individual or action that does not align with the mission of the fascist regime. People are overwhelmed; some are frozen. We know that overwhelm is part of the fascist strategy because people are vulnerable to misinformation and mis-education when they are overwhelmed. However, we also know that having a framework through which to make sense of these realities can be an antidote to this widespread epidemic of overwhelm and powerlessness. A metanarrative can mobilize and it can offer a sense of purpose that can embolden sustain action for the long-haul.   This updated metanarrative was designed to meet the challenges and opportunities of the present moment while remaining rooted in NAA’s values, theory of change, and structure.  

In this metanarrative document, we strive for a straightforward framework, simple values, clear characters, and examples. That way, volunteers across our movement (both local and national), can promote the same metanarrative again and again and again to better help us reach our narrative and organizing goals.

NAA's Audiences Audiences 

These are the people we are trying to speak to and move. All of our content should take all three audiences into account to some extent.

Primary Audience: Liberals

People who voted for Biden/Harris, care about immigrants, but may be hesitant to recognize the full extent of anti-immigrant state violence. Still buy into the good immigrant/bad immigrant framework.  

What deep narratives (values and frameworks) is this group subscribing to now?

In sum, they are terrified (and rightly so) about the Trump administration’s widening assault on human rights and civil liberties.

They are also furious about the nonexistent response from traditional institutions and liberal centers of power like the Democratic Party, but they also think that if the Democrats could get back into power, things would be fixed substantially.  

Tend to blame Trump and his administration rather than seeing present realities as the results of a broader system and set of values that began long before Trump.  

Diversity and justice, as long as they themselves can be comfortable.

May be wanting to return to the status quo rather than a more expansive liberatory vision.

What deep narratives (values and frameworks) do we want this group to subscribe to in 9-12 months?  

Freedom of movement and progressive immigration policy is good for all of us

Abundance: Billionaires and politicians hoard the resources and don’t leave enough for the rest of us. They pit us against each other to avoid blame. We know that, instead, we can build a world where there is enough for all. We can only do that by joining immigrants in the fight.

We need progressive immigration policy for a thriving democracy (Being bad on immigration is bad for democracy and for all people in the US)

Possibility: There is a future full of potential, hope, care and kindness

Agency: Our actions matter when we work together, in strategic coordination

Moral certainty about diversity and justice via Jewishness: Jews are one of many groups that know what fascism looks like and we will not stand for it, even if that fight is uncomfortable. Our Judaism teaches us the primary value of human life and grounds us in the fight against dehumanizing fascism and makes us fight to abolish the carceral immigration system (not just reform it).

Solidarity is a verb. Standing up for immigrant rights is essential to the preservation of all our rights.  

Secondary Audience: The people who are already really with us

NAA Base

What deep narratives (values and frameworks) is this group subscribing to now?

In sum, just like the liberals, they are terrified (and rightly so) about the Trump administration’s widening assault on human rights and civil liberties. However, they view the Trump administration’s fascism as the inevitable end point of failed neoliberal capitalism, rather than a completely aberrant development.    

have bedrock set of human rights values

Realize things are catastrophic; baffled why everyone else doesn’t share this viewpoint

What deep narratives (values and frameworks) do we want this group to subscribe to in 9-12 months?  

Moving people into action on small and large levels, toward realizing an affirmative abolitionist vision of liberation, justice, freedom of movement.

Empowered knowing that every action has the potential to function as sand in the gears of the deportation/detention industrial complex. Every obstacle we set can save lives.  

Want folks to feel grounded in collective power, interdependence, and an historical trajectory. Cultivating their own tolerance for risk and practicing bravery.

Always keeping in mind audience: Directly impacted folks and our immigrant partners

What deep narratives (values and frameworks) is this group subscribing to now?

Neither Dems nor Republicans care about immigrants

Want safety and security, but feel a lot of fear and hopelessness

Organizing security/defense responses in local ways ways 

Immigration is deeply intersectional with all forms of oppression (sexism, racism, ableism, classism, etc.)

What deep narratives (values and frameworks) do we want this group to subscribe to in 9-12 months?  

Show our support and that we’re with them. Not trying to move our immigrant partners necessarily, but want our immigrant partners to see that our content is grounded in immigrants' full and complex humanity. Respect individual stories and take into consideration what images we share and how they portray immigrants, especially Black immigrants and immigrants of color.

Share stories + images that show people in their full humanity, dignity, and complexity. Avoid victimizing, sharing triggering content and images without content warnings. Avoid "good immigrant" "bad immigrant" tropes. Uplift narratives that provide intersectional and abolitionist frames.

We help broadcast how people can get educated about resisting ICE in their communities communities 

NAA's Meta Narrative

US

Who do we want people to see themselves alongside? How will people see themselves in our narratives? How are people already identifying and how do we want them to identify?

• We are Jewish and non-Jewish allies of immigrants, who call on our collective ancestors, as we work to disrupt detention and deportation.
  • Many of us pull from Jewish history, which compels us to take the side of the stranger, the outsider. We act from the memory of many of our families’ displacement and marginalization, where they were classified among the communities our immigration system was built to keep out. We also fight in the memory of our ancestors who fought for the creation of refugee and asylum systems after witnessing the extreme loss of the Holocaust.   Our comparative safety now in the United States allows us this vantage point, that our solidarity lies with those fighting repression and displacement.    
  • Others pull from other histories of displacement and marginalization, as we know the Jewish experience is not exceptional and that many people on Turtle Island who are now afforded the shelter of whiteness and/or comparative affluence and/or safety have histories of migration and trauma.  
  • At a time when Jewish identity is weaponized by powerful interests, including the sitting president, to repress foreign born communities and inhibit protest movements, we affirm that Jewish history calls us into relationships of solidarity with immigrants and all displaced and oppressed people.
• Our collective work is based in the Jewish value of primacy of human life, as opposed to the fascist vision that devalues people
  • The talmud teaches the primacy of human life; every person is a world. That means every deportation disrupts many worlds, separating families and shunting life trajectories towards loss.   We will not just watch as worlds get deported and detained.
• We are people who often have white privilege or citizenship privilege, and we understand solidarity with immigrants means taking risk and using our privilege.  
  • We learn from the practice of accompaniment that our privileges can protect our neighbors because our collective power works.  
  • We see that the risks that we take on purpose in organizing pale in comparison to the risks that people who are targets of the detention and deportation system face every day are forced to take every day.  

Examples (feel free to continue updating)  

• When Mahmoud Khalil was abducted, we used our positionality as Jews to name the injustice and share solidarity with immigrants.
• Non-impacted people are able to take different risks than those targeted by the deportation machine. The tradition of accompaniment, lifted up by the murdered Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, has those who are white and/or citizens in a particular and sacred role. During the precarious time of the US-backed civil war in El Salvador, Romero said: “What the campesinos are doing is only just, and you should always be at their side. What the National Guard is likely to do is unjust. If they attack, you should be there next to the campesinos.
• The practice of accompaniment levies the comparative power of citizenship and/or whiteness to exhibit to the powers that be-   ICE, the DHS, immigration courts- that migrants are not alone, that they are part of a community. The New York New Sanctuary Coalition crowded immigration courts with “friends” of people facing deportation, sometimes succeeding in preventing their deportations.  
• In Milwaukee this January, 150 people turned up for the immigration hearing of Yessenia Ruano, a Salvadoran teacher who had been told she would be deported.   Ruano said goodbye to her daughters and went into the ICE office, flanked by faith leaders, only to emerge an hour later. ICE told her she could have more time to work on her asylum application.

THEM

Who are we fighting? Who do we have power against? How can we make them "them" as small and clear as possible so that we can have the biggest "us" and smallest "them"

• Fascism and the GOP - As the US Republican Party becomes engulfed by the MAGA movement, we understand that the GOP has leaned further into fascist rhetoric, which include the scapegoating of immigrants, specifically Black and brown immigrants. Blaming the problems of working class people on immigrants instead of offering material solutions to people’s problems is key. In this moment it is also important to note that liberals and democrats in policy making positions might also fall into line with this rhetoric on a policy level.  
• We are fighting white nationalism, which succeeds only by pitting communities against one another and scapegoating immigrants. White nationalism succeeds by stoking fear as a distraction from real solutions to the many urgent problems of climate, healthcare, education, and the economy.    
• We are fighting the profiteers of the detention and deportation system. Private detention corporations like CoreCivic and GeoGroup are bipartisan donors; they want only to ensure that the beds in their wretched facilities are filled, and that their coffers spill over with the blood money from their maltreatment of migrants, including family and child detentions.

Examples Examples 

• Kamala Harris lost credibility with many immigrant communities by hopping onto the right’s immigrant-bashing. This daughter of immigrants signed onto vicious and destructive legislation in a failed hope to buy credibility from the right. This must stop. Our politicians have to represent us, all of us.   Disastrously pursuing a middle path instead of standing up for the multiracial coalition that represents the majority of Americans, the Democrats lost the election.
• This continues when we see popular and insurgent democrats like Ruben Gallego caving on enforcement and voting for the dastardly Laken Riley Act Act 
• Around the country, some sheriffs advocate for 287 g agreements and unwilling to meet with constituents whose safety is under siege by them

PROBLEM & POSSIBILITY

How are we framing the problem in our narrative in a way that gives people analysis. What is happening and why? But like… concisely.  

• Problem
  • The detention and deportation system is a key building block of American racial capitalism, that relies on the repression of Black and Brown people, creating a system where our collective needs can only be met through labor coerced out of fear.  
    • That’s why immigration policy is used to define "in" groups and "out" groups, create widespread fear within the public and fuel fascists rise in power around the world, harming us all; it’s like a national homeostasis regulating who can be a part of the community.
    • Surveillance and registries are making it harder for people to exercise their right of freedom of movement, tracking and capturing people to control our communities.
    • Instead, we can reject coercive policies that terrorize immigrant communities into compliance, scare workers out of organizing or even asking for basic rights like fair pay, workers’ compensation, etc. We can stop attacking the people who have been feeding every person on Turtle Island and meeting our basic needs and instead create new systems that fairly treat all workers and do not rely on repression and fear.   We know that hardworking immigrants deserve the full protections of unionization, of workers’ compensation, as well as the collective benefits of health care and education.
  • We can surrender to the “in groups” and “out group” divisions of white supremacy, or we can reject the intensification of deportation terror and the dismantling of civil liberties and human rights that come with it and instead welcome people facing impossible circumstances, and pay forward the often life-saving access to safety that our direct ancestors received.
  • If we welcomed people fleeing impossible circumstances that are very often created by US global policy, people wouldn’t have to be afraid to move and all would know we had access to safety.  
    • Example: In 1939 the US was among the western hemisphere countries that turned back a ship, the St Louis, that was packed with refugees from Nazi terror. Most of those aboard were forced to return to Europe; many of them died in death camps there.
  • We can have communities that are devastated and worn, terrified by the detention and deportation system,   or we can have flourishing communities where everyone is safe and we care for each other.
    • Specifically, when our communities are based in the misery of people at the bottom, we all feel angry, tense, and afraid of each other. Instead, we can build a society based on mutual care, where we can all enjoy our communities, contribute to our collective needs, and celebrate what we’ve built.  

Examples:

• What are they thinking about doing about our food??? We see that racism is getting in the way of our ability to eat, function,
• We highlight how deportations are dismantling our communities (like a bakery that’s been closed)
• Kids who have anxiety and stress because their parents might not be home when they get back from school
• What if the St. Louis had been welcomed here?

VISION

Something people can SEE and FEEL and BELIEVE IN

• The right has lied to us about a “secure community.” We envision a real secure community where everyone, no matter their immigration and economic status, is living and thriving without fear.
  • We keep each other safe.   “Crime” is used to terrorize and divide us all.
• We can build a world
  • Of vibrant communities, based in welcome, care, and diversity, not on fear and repression.  
  • Where the institutions around us support us and where we can all find safety.
  • where people both are safe to stay where they were born and safe to leave if they want to.
  • Where we have torn up the playbook of hate and division, exemplified by Project Esther, and rewrote it with a story of solidarity.  

• We envision a world where the fundamental human right of freedom of movement is honored and supported. Immigrant labor performed by people working to make their families and communities strong and hoping for better lives makes all of our lives possible.

CHOICE & INVITATION

We can build this world by all taking small and specific action. We can let the fear and anxiety paralyze us or we can each find small ways every day to build the freedom of movement that we need. Brick by brick, we can build a different reality.

We can throw sand in the gears of the far-right's plan, work together across race and class, and build a community of care not repression.

We can let the Jewish community’s stories be misused to target immigrants or we can take the past traumas of Jewish community and rewrite our story to align with the people the system is targeting to collectively imagine a better future.

A few invitation questions

• Will you join a collective of people who will show up for our collective community to survive this moment and to fight for a revolutionary vision of what could be?
• Will you support us in throwing sand in the gears?
• Will you commit to being part of throwing sand in the gears
• Will you take risks with us to challenge the systems of repression?
• Will you take a concrete step to contribute to the work? I.e. contribute financially, join as a member, form a pod, join your local chapter, etc.  

Topline Words to Use Again & Again to get our Meta Narrative Across

• Freedom of Movement
• Better for Everyone Everyone 
• Sanctuary Everywhere
• We keep each other safe

What kinds of stories and messages (narratives) do we want to find and create to move this audience from where they are to where we want them to be?

• Stories of local victories and their impacts on the communities as a whole
  • Successful deportation defense
  • Legislative victories (highlighting community organizing to achieve these)
  • Other examples of collective solidarity with immigrant communities and their institutional impact
• Descriptions and visualizations of our vision
  • Look for/highlight local stories of sanctuary or other welcoming actions
  • Can we imagine an immigration process that rejects chaos and is instead streamlined, and humane, oriented towards facilitating the freedom of movement for everyone?
• Personal stories from immigrants and refugees refugees 
  • Especially ones that demonstrate the vision more than the problem
  • Working against 'good immigrant' / 'bad immigrant' tropes
  • At the same time, documenting and being real about the injustice that’s being done
• Data/stories about how freedom of movement is good for all of us
  • ex. from John Washington Open Borders book
  • ex. JFREJ housing justice work
• How borders have fucked Jewish immigrants in the past (borders are bad)  
  • Bundist model for justice work - an end to oppression and discrimination against Jews and others requires solidarity, not particularism.  
  • Emphasize non-zionist thinking--nation-state, more borders don’t make us safer--solidarity does.
  • Other Holocaust messaging - we will not inform on our neighbors as our ancestors were informed upon. And, when applicable, relevant themes/dark periods from Jewish history i.e. expulsion, ghettoization, etc.  
• Resistance
  • Examples of people and communities successfully resisting the current administration (while not losing sight of the fact that the fascistic detention/deportation project is bi-partisan)
  • Examples of building safety, community defense, sanctuary as acts of resistance
• Sanctuary Everywhere
  • Highlight acts of safety and solidarity in everyday contexts
• Pushback against any and all attempts to pit anyone vs immigrants by highlighting who the actual villains are (billionaires)
  • Anytime immigrants are scapegoated, caricatured, vilified, etc, take it (among other things) as an opportunity to point out that we all have much more in common with each other than we do with the billionaires profiting off of our division and anger
• Proposed top priorities for TL;DR
  • Human stories centering directly-impacted people
    • Meta-priority that should ideally be attached to each of the following
  • Actions people can take or emulate (current or historical)
  • Stories about resistance (current or historical)
  • Stories highlighting who the actual villains are (ie, Trump, white nationalists and greedy billionaires)
  • Positive, or at least “as positive as possible in the current moment” stories
  • How the criminal immigration system in the US is contributing to the crumbling of the empire

Language Dos and Don’ts:

Please note that news articles we share should be screened for these issues also, and if they do include messaging that is contradictory to our values, call it out in the blurb.  

We do use positive emotion to evoke an alternative or better future

We don’t stoke panic, manipulate emotions, or play into attempts to overwhelm people with fear and urgency.  

We don’t rob people of their agency or autonomy

• Don’t use passive voice
• From Oxfam:  
  • We do not want to perpetuate the stereotypes of people living in poverty, but instead show a true and accurate account of the ways in which people live. This means we show people as empowered, dignified human beings. We don’t portray them as submissive or helpless, nor as victims, objects of pity, or incapable individuals waiting for help from a “white saviour". People are survivors, not victims; they are active participants in work, in life and in bringing about change in their lives. In terms of our campaign work, we believe in collective action with freedom of association to be a basic right. Capture the reality of the situation in a way that we call “need with dignity” — portraying people respectfully; as having dignity and an inner strength and determination; capable individuals helping or wanting to help themselves.

We don’t produce trauma porn & tokenism

• If we are sharing stories about brutality, also share a gofundme link for the family or some other way to materially support.
• Look at the images in articles we’re sharing. Are there white humanitarians serving poor or troubled looking people of color?
• If there is triggering language in linked articles, we use content warnings or avoid sharing.

We do use Holocaust references responsibly

• At a time when the legacy of the Holocaust and antisemitism is constantly being maliciously used as justification for deportation, disappearance, repression, and more, we must claim this legacy in our fight.
• We make concrete, specific connections between the treatment of immigrants in the U.S. and Jewish history history 
  • We compare all detention centers, and especially name CECOT in El Salvador as concentration camps
  • We point out the use of surveillance, informants and data tools of state violence, as witnessed in the Holocaust
• When we make comparisons, we avoid exceptionalism by:
  • Pointing out that there are other historical analogues too
  • Rooting our comparisons in an understanding that Jewish people are not the only group to have been targeted for genocide
  • Supporting Jewish people in our networks to make the connections between systemic violence against Jews and systemic violence against immigrants, with an understanding that safety comes through solidarity with all oppressed peoples
• We recount the stages leading to fascism and genocide to help ground folks in where we are now and what will come next and how to prepare for it
  • We also educate about other historical oppressions, so we don’t reproduce the harmful notion of antisemitism and Jewish trauma as exceptional among all other forms of hate and trauma.

We don’t use the word Migrant.

• We have been advised by partners to use the word “immigrant” instead of “migrant.”

We don’t give individuals undeserved power.

• We must hold politicians accountable; but we know that regular people are the footsoldiers of oppression, and no harmful policies can be carried out without the willing participation of many individuals at all levels of society. All of the individuals in the White House and Congress combined are fewer than the staffers of a single detention center. At the same time, we recognize the systemic root causes fueling the detention and deportation machine (i.e. racial capitalism) and know that they will not be alleviated merely by removing individuals from their positions but only by building mass resistance at every level of society, fostering non-compliance, solidarity, mutual aid, and cultural transformation.    

DO talk about corporate power holders and the power of the consumer!  

We don’t use the word “leaders” when referring to elected representatives.

• Remind people that even in a democratic farce, we must speak and behave in a way that reflects our power and influence over the people we pay and elect, whether we like them or not, we are the ones in charge and responsible for our society and government.

We don’t assume American exceptionalism

• Meeting the moment requires that we see clearly. The expectation of comfort and idea that “this could never happen here” has not effectively prepared many of us for what is occurring.   We help our communities recognize the ways in which this moment stands upon a long-standing American legacy of oppression while allowing ourselves to draw inspiration from global communities that have successfully led liberation and decolonization movements, knowing that comfort and power acquired on the backs of others, in the U.S. and abroad, is not sustainable.  
• Perpetuating American myths about democracy, founding fathers, melting pots, religious safe haven.  
• We do not assume that “America” means something intrinsically, essentially, good to our audience, and we name the legacies of American imperialism and racial capitalism that have paved the way for the present moment of increased state violence.  
• We do not assume that violations of rights only happen in China or North Korea, when we know that the genocide of indigenous communities on Turtle Island happened here by Americans.
• “Does that sound like America to you?” is not effective messaging for building systemic change; it appeals to a status quo that was always relying on oppression.

We do value the rights we have fought for

(including due process, habeus corpus, birthright citizenship, etc.)

• Starting with the Magna Carta in the 13th century, people have fought for these rights to lessen the power of rulers; 14th Amendment stipulated birthright citizenship for all as a way to redress the structural inequalities created by the slavery system; the Court upheld access to birthright citizenship for all in the case of Wong Kim Ark, therefore supporting the citizenship and belonging of immigrant communities
• What happens to immigrants can always happen to citizens:   after Executive Order 9066 mandated the internment of Japanese Americans, ⅔ of those forcibly removed to camps in the interior US were American citizens.
• When legal precedent is used irresponsibly to target someone like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, that irresponsibility jeopardizes everyone’s legal rights rights 

We don’t speak in terms of saviorism & trophyism trophyism 

• We’re not here to “change people’s lives”, they change their own lives and we support them.
• Oppressed people do not need to be exceptional or heroic in order to earn public support or sympathy. Being human is enough.  

We don’t use “their” narratives

• Not falling into the opponent’s frame of thinking (capitalist thoughts, zero sum game, etc., dehumanizing language to describe immigration)  
• THEY do not define the limits of what is possible. We are not afraid to think bigger and rewrite the scripts.  
• “Looting or protests are violent” Reframe to: the system is violent.
• “Crisis at the border” - When they say “crisis”, they misidentify who suffers and why. Instead, we center the people locked in cages and recognize the violence of the existence of a border in the first place. “Criminals” - no one deserves to be deported
• “Terrorists” - contextualize the use of that term in US history to turn people against many people who challenges challenges  the U.S. imperial agenda

We don’t throw people under the bus when saying something in support of another group of people

• i.e : ”they’re targeting immigrant families, these people are not criminals” (only non-criminals deserve our compassion) good immigrant/bad immigrant
• I.e. “Stop employment discrimination against people with disabilities, they want to work, not just sit around and collect welfare” (pitting workers against welfare recipients)

We don’t send traffic to news sources and other links that are not our friends.  

• We try to find aligned media sources to share new updates.
• We only use archive links (i.e. links that work around paywalls) when necessary to avoid sending traffic to potentially antagonistic websites.

Insights on what to highlight:

The following are narrative threads that the strategy team identified as being needed to combat Right-Wing extremism and win on all fronts:  

• We must foreground the intersectionality of our movements: This is especially apparent at the intersection between the fight to end detention and deportation and the fight for Palestinian liberation and for the right to protest. As revealed by Mahmoud Khalil’s treatment, Palestinian immigrants and all immigrants who have been part of the struggle to end the U.S-funded genocide in Gaza are being prioritized for deportation without regard to their criminal record or immigration status, shining a light on the fallacy of the narrative of deportation being primarily reserved for “criminal” undocumented immigrants. We also recognize that the immigration justice movement is a challenge to the prison industrial complex which profits off of detention, and therefore we can learn from and continue to uplift abolitionist partners. The militarization of the police, an initiative of the War on Terror and War on Drugs, now also subjects immigrant communities to highly advanced technologies for surveillance, control, and capture. Of course the intersections go on as congress approves billions of dollars to expand detention and deportation in the U.S. while stealing tax-payer money meant to fund education, healthcare, housing, and climate justice.
• Coalescing the Left Around Fascism: Fascism is a growing threat; demonizing immigrants is part of the fascist project. We see in the sweeping attacks against research, free press, public health, free speech, and schools; we see it at the border in Texas with Operation Lone Star; in states passing anti-trans legislation; and in the U.S. military support for Israel against Palestine. Connecting our struggles to a common enemy strengthens our fight for freedom.
• Centering Personal Stories: Never Again Action can use our platform to tell frontline immigrant stories, as asked for by our partner organizations. Personal stories counter the dehumanizing rhetoric across the political spectrum which reduces immigration to a debate topic when real lives hang in the balance.
• Foregrounding Role of Climate Change: Existential threat of climate change is a huge driver of immigration; these movements are still largely siloed. We see this as an area of growth for narrative as climate refugees will become more prevalent over the next few decades.

Never Again Action is grounded in the need to embrace and message with Jewish values and identity firmly in connection with our history and how it intersects with current immigration struggles. We want to uplift the work of partners and chapters, center personal stories, and to prioritize not just rebutting the right-wing framework, but developing an alternative. We reject dehumanizing, criminalizing language. Where possible, we draw connections between the larger abolitionist and racial justice movements, police violence, climate change and histories of settler-colonialism and U.S. foreign intervention. We do so using language intended to educate, open minds and welcome all of our audiences to continue expanding their understanding of the roots of oppression.

Which Platforms to use for which audiences (check out these helpful insights)

• Facebook for boomers and older millennials
• Instagram for millennials and gen Z Z 
• Tiktok (no presence currently) very popular with gen z (and others)
• YouTube (no NAA presence I believe) is most popular among Gen Z these days days 
• Bluesky?!

Useful Reference/Resource Docs (please note that many of these resources are also available at the Never Again Action Member Resources)

• NAA's "Our Voice, Our Lane"
• Sprout Social Demographics guide
• Butterfly Lab Narrative Guide & Toolkit
• Narrative Retreat Notes
• ASO Communications Immigrant Rights Cheat Sheet
• Immigrant Legal Resource Center's s  "Critical Action Needed"

Evidence Based Findings to Refer Back To:

• Butterfly Lab: Part 1 and Part 2
  • We found that to move audiences, we needed to take them on a journey that ends with a positive vision of what life could be. But there are important differences in storytelling that persuade different audiences; see our Audience Snapshot section to learn what worked for different audiences. Regardless of what stories we told, our storytelling was future-oriented, designed to move audiences toward our long-term goal of a pro-immigrant paradigm.  
  • Acknowledging and addressing audiences’ fear of change helps clear a path for people to overcome fear-based opposition narratives. Audiences’ fear of change seems to grow from a core fear of loss – losing control, losing a way of life, or losing status and the ability to thrive. We developed content to test how we might move people away from a fear of change. We started where people were at by acknowledging emotions or anxieties in a non-judgmental way, and ended with a story of change that included those audiences. We didn’t validate those fears, but instead showed how change could be better for us all, or showed how change is part of a larger story of the endurance of our shared values.
  • Telling stories of a positive, hopeful future are a critical bridge to a pro-immigrant mindset. Especially for audiences primed for Zero-Sum thinking, it was important to illustrate how a pro-immigrant future is better for everyone, including them. Stories about the future are where we most effectively activated audiences’ desire for the freedom to move. We found it effective to paint a picture of the future without conceptual words like “justice” or “equity”, while describing the tangible benefits of a future in which those things were true. We also found it helpful to include hints of a structured, accessible immigration process as part of the future — not by mentioning systems directly, but by describing the results of having an easy and efficient immigration process.
  • What Persuades Tough Cookies: To unlock their pro-immigrant mindset, Tough Cookies need to be reassured that change is natural and positive and that they have a place in a pluralistic future. They need stories forecasting a better future that also benefits them. When faced with a Great Replacement Theory-based opposition narrative, the only thing that overcame it for them was a story that both addressed their fear of change and described a positive future where everyone has the freedom to move.
  • We described the future without jargon: Painting a picture of the future in some detail worked best for audiences, though even subtle nods to the future worked well. The content that worked did not include conceptual words like “justice” or “equity”, instead describing the tangible benefits of a future in which those things were true.  
  • Our research points to the need for what the writer Viet Thanh Nguyen calls “narrative plenitude”: more, truthful stories told by immigrants that move the norms away from the “good”/”bad” binary, where characters experience the joy, pain and love consistent with being human, where they are allowed to make mistakes and still be accepted.10 As an example, the Black Lives Matter movement has led to a sea change in less than a decade toward more and truer representation. We need additional exploration and investment to achieve that narrative plentitude and to set cultural norms that acknowledge the breadth of immigrants’ humanity
• ASO Communications
  • Lead with values, such as freedom, naming that they’re shared across races, classes, and backgrounds.  

While there is an understandable urge to emphasize the horrors experienced by immigrants and people seeking asylum, we know from years of research that focusing solely on harms demoralizes and demobilizes people, causing them to turn away rather than take action. Further, among those most impacted, it can feel like advocates are reducing people’s identity only to the horrible conditions they have been made to endure. Rendering them hapless victims, rather than lifting up their courage and tenacity.

Instead, anchor your message in the shared value of freedom and uplift the courage and tenacity of people who move to the United States. Name race explicitly to build an inclusive “us” to push back against the division our opposition stokes. Avoid language like “the border” or “(im)migrant crisis,” which bring the opposition’s divisive rhetoric of nationalism top of mind; center, instead, people who are seeking a better life.

• Name the culprits and their motivations in blocking solutions, perpetuating harms, and scapegoating new Americans.

Providing a clear origin story for the current situation is critical. MAGA Republicans use immigrants as a catch-all villain for our problems, trying to get us to point the finger at whomever they deem “other” instead of coming together to implement real solutions. Make it clear who is at fault for the problems we are facing - politicians who use racial scapegoating to seize or preserve power and sow division among us.  

• Combat cynicism by highlighting past and recent victories we’ve achieved through collective action and unity.  

Citing ways we’ve acted together in the past to achieve positive change allows us to combat cynicism and withstand false claims from our opponents.  

• Close with a vision for a better future that we will achieve by creating a fair immigration process that respects all families.

We must close with a vision of a beautiful tomorrow that is safe for us all. An inclusive, well-structured process that will uphold our shared values of freedom and foster a nation where all families have the chance to thrive and contribute.

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