A UNITY BLUEPRINT

In June of 2019, a Blue Ribbon Commission comprised of 20 individuals, from various grassroots organizations, backgrounds, and communities, convened to launch the development of a policy blueprint for use by the next administration to immediately repair harms and reverse failures caused by previous administrations.

The result is the Migrant Justice Platform, a roadmap of Executive and Legislative actions from grassroots voices across the United States and abroad that parts ways from the “single-bill” strategy that has defined immigration politics for two decades. It is a unity blueprint intended as a launching point for an open-source effort that centers grassroots voices on various aspects of immigration reform.

The Migrant Justice Platform presents a vision and principles to change course from the failed “comprehensive immigration reform” strategy of previous administrations. It recommends concrete executive and congressional actions in three thematic areas: at home, on the southern border, and abroad.

In its recommendations, it lays out concrete policy recommendations to ensure our undocumented, TPS, DED, and DACA sisters and brothers breathe free without fear of persecution; a centering of workers rights within immigration policy; a new policy approach to the borderlands that includes demilitarization and restructuring of border agencies; and a rethinking of the U.S. impact and role abroad.

Overall, it is the beginning of a new discussion for immigration action that must include impacted communities, remedy past mistakes, and see the whole of the global crisis.