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National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) - United States
Countries
Bolivia, Haiti, Philippines, United States
Regions
Global, Africa, North America
Founded in 1986, the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) is a USA-based alliance composed of local coalitions and immigrant, refugee, community, religious, civil rights, and labour organisations and activists. It provides information, works to bring organisations together, and engages in advocacy efforts to the end of promoting a just immigration and refugee policy in the United States and to defend and expand the rights of all immigrants and refugees.
Communication Strategies
NNIRR's strategy involves networking - convening a "community of practice" and supporting it by offering forums for sharing information and analysis, educating communities and the general public, and developing and coordinating plans of action on immigrant and refugee issues.
NNIRR and its member groups work to document human rights abuses, challenge legislation, advocate for the rights of immigrant workers, and highlight issues of immigrants rights in the mainstream and independent media. To sustain these efforts, NNIRR builds the capacity of its network through, first, face-to-face training. NNIRR organises national, movement-wide conferences to address strategy development and organising, as well as smaller regional or thematically focussed gatherings for grassroots organisations and immigrant organisers. The latter gatherings emphasise sharing analysis, building strategy, honing media skills, and developing key messages about immigrant rights.
Second, NNIRR builds capacity by providing tools including printed publications such as Network News, which offers analysis and features on issues of US immigration and global migration), and online resources. The NNIRR website features resources relevant for immigrant and refugee communities, as well as tools and campaign details. A listserv is designed to enable sharing of experiences and information among this community and all those interested in rights-related issues.
Selected NNIRR activities, which are detailed on this website, include:
- Legalisation campaign: Involves face-to-face consultations that explores how to improve human and civil rights protections for all immigrants, regardless of immigration status.
- September 11 initiative: To support advocacy around the terrorist attacks on the United States (September 11 2001), the NNIRR provides information and analysis, as well as tools for education and dialogue - all of which are available online. For example, local resources and telephone hotlines are delineated on the NNIRR site; the goal is to enable citizens to report incidences of hate violence and to combat hate violence nationwide.
- Building a Race and Immigration Dialogue in the Global Era (BRIDGE): an education-based dialogue and curriculum project for advocates and organisers that explores issues such as changing demographics, immigration and economics, hate crimes, and racist violence against immigrants, gender and immigration, and links between immigration, population, and environment. A workbook features workshop modules geared toward popular educators, immigrant and refugee rights organisers, and other activists.
- "Uprooted: Refugees of the Global Economy": A half-hour video that presents 3 stories of immigrants who left their homes in Bolivia, Haiti, and the Philippines, only to face new challenges in the United States. These stories raise questions about US immigration policy, questions that organisers hope will inspire dialogue.
- Migrant Rights are Human Rights Campaign: As part of the NNIRR's efforts to support the global campaign to bring into force the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families, organisers initiate commemorative activities each December 18, the UN-recognised International Day of Solidarity with Migrants. To support local, national, and global efforts to commemorate this day, ideas and tools are presented on the NNIRR site. For example, in 2003, organisations were urged to endorse NNIRR's national statement; hold a press conference, public forum, or community workshop; use the online "Tips on Passing Local Resolutions" to lobby local public officials; refer to sample letters and write one to government officials to ask them to recognise the Day; issue an organisational statement; screen films and documentaries; post posters; and spread the word to others.
- Initiatives related to immigrant women: To address the fact that immigrant women are, in organisers' estimation, among the most vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, and human rights violations in the USA, NNIRR organised an immigrant women's delegation for the "Beijing +5 Women 2000" and published Released Hands That Shape the World, a report detailing the challenges immigrant women have faced since the 1995 conference on women.
Development Issues
Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
Key Points
While NNIRR primarily focusses on the United States, organisers say that the National Network is linked to migrants rights organisations in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.
Placed on the Communication Initiative site December 19 2003
Last Updated December 19 2003
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