Immigration Justice

Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson’s Immigration Justice Campaign fights for justice for immigrants in the Mid-Hudson Valley and statewide. The Campaign organizes immigrants and allies to win demands such as statewide driver’s license accessibility, municipal IDs, and other meaningful protections for all 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, are facing perilous conditions. Deportation is a massive and growing threat. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is targeting all undocumented immigrants, and the rescinding of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is putting 800,000 young immigrants at risk.

Undocumented immigrants lack forms of official identification, which leaves them unable to access essential social services; vulnerable to exploitation by employers, landlords, and the police; and unable to legally drive in areas without adequate public transportation. Lacking a form of official identification is one of the primary reasons undocumented immigrants end up being deported.

Our Immigration Justice Campaign works to address these conditions by organizing and winning concrete gains for immigrants, undocumented immigrants in particular. There are several areas of work in the campaign.

First, we are a Steering Committee member of the “Green Light New York Driving Together” campaign fighting for statewide legislation to allow all New Yorkers to access driver’s licenses regardless of documentation status. In addition to being part of the Steering Committee, we’ve also taken on the primary responsibility of running and training the campaign’s “Consejo,” its statewide advisory council of directly impacted immigrants.

Second, we are fighting to win the creation of municipal IDs that would be accessible to undocumented immigrants in cities throughout the Hudson Valley. We have won both the second and third municipal programs in all of New York State — in Poughkeepsie and Middletown — and are working to pass them in Beacon, Kingston, and Warwick as well. 

Third, we are fighting to win protections at the federal level as a member of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) and as a part of the national movement. In July of 2018, we joined the NYIC’s Immigrants Vote! Campaign to ensure a more representative mid-term election. We registered 1,067 voters in three months and made over 25,000 calls and texts in three weeks to increase voter turnout amongst new citizens, people of color, and low-income folks.