RAICES Advocacy

Originally from Durango, Mexico, Erika Andiola has harnessed her experience as an undocumented immigrant to elevate marginalized communities, inspire movements, and mobilize activists on the frontlines of the battle for migrant justice. As the first Chief Advocacy Officer of RAICES, the nation’s foremost nonprofit provider of free and low-cost legal and social services for immigrants and refugees, Erika has assumed her position as a leading civil rights activist of our generation, changing the narrative around immigration and paving the way for reform. Previously, Erika was the co-founder of the Dream Action Coalition and president of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, where she fought for the passage of the DREAM Act. She has also served on the United We Dream Network board and as Political Director of Our Revolution, a political action organization spun out of Senator Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign for which Erika was Press Secretary for Latinx Outreach.

RAICES has served vulnerable immigrants and refugees for over 30 years, so when the “zero tolerance” policy was enacted and children fleeing violence in Central America were separated from their parents and detained in cages, RAICES was ready to act. Attorneys and staff applied their expertise to reunite families, free children and families from detention, and help migrants get medical care. We continue to respond rapidly to ongoing crises and meet the challenges of COVID-19 and the Trump Administration’s escalating assault on immigrants. But to see systemic change, we need a culture shift. So, in 2019, I joined RAICES to build a team anchored in the community-based traditions of grassroots activism, to transform a society that has turned immigrants like me into the enemy. We educate, mobilize, and organize people to fight for a world where everyone has the right to migrate and human rights are guaranteed.

We know that the United States immigration system is broken. Today there are more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living under the threat of detention, family separation, and deportation. Nearly 700,000 DACA recipients continue to be on notice and inhumane detention centers hold more than 38,000 immigrants, including 3,500 unaccompanied minors. The Migrant Protection Protocols have forced more than 60,000 asylum seekers to wait in dangerous conditions in Mexico while immigration court has a backlog of over 1 million pending cases with a two-year average wait time for hearings. The global pandemic has only emboldened the Trump Administration to continue its assault on immigration by gutting asylum, reducing refugee admission, limiting international students, and banning foreign workers. We also know that white supremacy is at the root of this assault on immigrants. The Administration has rooted its identity in racism, xenophobia, and white supremacist ideology that has roused non-stop xenophobic and racist attacks towards Black and Brown communities. In response, we created our Advocacy department precisely to challenge this framework emanating from the White House. Our goal is to ensure lasting change to the immigration system, and we plan to achieve this by building a broad coalition of immigration advocates.

Laws change only after the culture shifts. If RAICES was to focus solely on legal services, the immigration system would never change, as we would be reinforcing the systems of oppression that must be dismantled. We have always been advocates, both in the streets and in the courtroom, and in 2019 we built a fierce Advocacy team to transform the immigration system and narrative in this country once and for all. Our mandate is to advocate for community members, educate and mobilize the public around issues and campaigns, push for pro-immigrant local and national policies, and engage in narrative change work that reframes how our immigrant community is represented in the media, in culture and society, and amongst lawmakers. We do this through four channels: organizing and activating a base of supporters, communicating expert opinion and stories centered on the immigrant experience, leading partnerships and coalitions with other human rights organizations, and managing campaigns that impact our communities. Over the past year, we have greatly expanded our public presence and have grown the largest social media network of any immigrant rights organization in the United States. Today we are the biggest and most reliable voice in the immigrant rights movement.

America is a nation of immigrants. We are working on behalf of its entire population. Our goal of creating a more just, humane, and tolerant society where all people have the right to migrate is intended to strengthen fundamental American ideals and democratic principles. By amplifying marginalized and underrepresented immigrants and refugees, we aim to educate the public through conversations around immigration justice and human rights, touch hearts and minds, and ultimately impact immigration policies and practices. In changing the immigration narrative, we intend for the stories we share and the policies we advance to unite us through our common humanity, foster community, and build bridges towards mutual understanding while celebrating central American tenets of diversity, inclusion, and the freedom to pursue a better life. All the while, we fight on behalf of our clients. Last year alone we closed 28,257 legal cases, impacting the lives of 50,158 clients and their dependents at no cost to them. Our Bond Fund spent $9.6 million to secure the release of nearly 1,000 individuals from ICE detention last year, and since 2017 we have supported the resettlement of over 600 refugees. Their lived experience serves as our moral compass.

RAICES Advocacy builds awareness and drives action toward rebuilding an immigration system that has been designed to diminish the humanity of Black and Brown people. Central to our approach is the amplification of positive immigration narratives. We drive the conversation and set the tone and tenor of the stories we tell about the experience of immigrants and refugees in America with the intention of changing people’s attitudes and generating a more tolerant society that does not fear monger. RAICES clients are among the world’s most marginalized and vulnerable communities, and we ensure that their lived experiences are not in vain.

I arrived in the United States when I was 11 years old, and the threat of “la migra” always loomed. But I kept trying to live a ‘normal’ life. I got into college and studied psychology –– planning to work as a counselor for victims of domestic violence like my mom. Then in 2008, at the end of my junior year at Arizona State University, the state decided I would lose my scholarships because I was undocumented. I was devastated. That’s when I became an activist, beginning with the fight for DACA. 

Children like me arrive at our southern border daily seeking safety. Hundreds have died crossing the brutal Chihuahuan desert and others have perished in CBP custody. No human being belongs in a cage, especially a child. Yet this is how our country treats immigrants and refugees. An outpouring of global support for the work of RAICES at the height of our family separation crisis in 2018 created the space for the intersectional work that I have always known to be necessary to liberate the disenfranchised from systemic oppression. RAICES provided the place for collaboration in opposition to the fundamental injustice, inequity, and violence that impacts People of Color.

I have this recurring nightmare. Everything around me is so white. I am in some kind of prison cell, and I am shivering. It’s so cold. I know what it’s like to be in a place like that, places like the Border Patrol holding cells and ICE detention facilities. I have visited those places because I am an immigration activist. But the reality is, someday, I could end up there indefinitely. I could be detained because I am an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who was granted a reprieve through DACA. 

The Supreme Court’s recent defense of DACA has been a big relief for my little brother and me, but it remains painful to live the experience of our family members. Even though we’re protected, more than 11 million people in this country are not –– like my mom, who is in deportation proceedings. This is the fight of my lifetime. I am faced everyday with the realities that drive my commitment, drive, and determination to fight for those who are undocumented and unafraid and to take a stand against intolerant immigration policies that put hundreds of thousands asylum seekers in harm’s way.

I am guided by my lived experience and the values that have been instilled in me by a family that puts the principles of community first. I know that I have to be strong for myself so that I can be strong for others and keep fighting for our dignity and our human rights. Since I crossed the United States-Mexico border at age 11, I have lived through the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, an agency that promised to protect the American people before being weaponized against those like my family in pursuit of safety. I have had the right to an education threatened. I have risked everything fighting with my fellow migrant justice warriors for the rights that were ultimately secured under DACA, only to live with the continued threat that those rights may one day be revoked. I live in fear of losing my loved ones. But I have always continued to fight through organizing, through diplomacy, through every means possible. I vow never to stop.

My mom is my biggest inspiration. On a Thursday night in 2013, shortly after I was granted DACA status, I almost lost her. There was a loud banging knock at the door. Immigration agents were there to conduct an “investigation.” They asked for Maria, my mom, and as soon she stepped out, they abruptly pulled her with force and handcuffed her in front of me and Angel, my 16-year-old brother. They also detained my older brother for no cause. Angel pointed out to them that they needed to take her medications because of her cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure. They laughed in his face. I felt helpless as I watched the most important people in my life being taken away. In a moment of desperation, I made a call online for people to mobilize and organize around keeping my mom from being deported. I did not know what else to do. In a matter of a few hours, there was enough political pressure on immigration that they decided to turn the bus around and bring her home. That was a really big turning point for me. I realized the power of a community on which I could rely.

I became involved with immigrant rights advocacy and activism in 2008 when Arizona passed Proposition 300, a law that banned undocumented students from receiving in-state tuition and revoked my scholarships. At the same time, my mom’s workplace was raided by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and he raided my home and took my uncle. All this motivated a group of undocumented students at Arizona State University to start organizing for the DREAM Act and against Arizona’s anti-immigrant measures. We were introduced to each other through a private fund for us. We decided to name ourselves the Arizona Dream Act Coalition. I was voted as its first president and lead organizer and worked to mobilize hundreds of students to fight for the passage of the DREAM Act legislation. In many ways, that was the very beginning of the movement that pushed President Obama to give us what now is called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. DACA was recently granted a temporary reprieve by the Supreme Court, keeping an estimated 700,000 individuals safe from deportation, but there would be no DACA at all if it were not for those of us who risked our lives and made our voices heard in unison.

In order to achieve migrant justice, we need to build people power and change the current dominant narrative on immigration — by organizing the people we serve, mobilizing our supporters, and educating the public.

Our goals are many due to the scope and scale of the systemic abuses of power that greet immigrants and refugees and disproportionately hurt vulnerable Black and Brown peoples who have historically faced levels of oppression seeking to deny their innate humanity. Through the power of community, we intend to further our Migrant Justice Platform, a unity blueprint intended as a launching point for an open-source effort that centers grassroots voices on various aspects of immigration reform; end the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP); end family separation and close immigrant detention centers that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) itself has likened to prison; abolish ICE and defund the police, with a focus on the divest and invest model; and elevate the concept of Climate Refugees on a global stage, understanding that climate change poses great threats to displacement caused by work, housing, and food insecurities.

An unpredictable climate of unprecedented crisis both heightens the need for our work and serves as a barrier. We know that in times of crisis, already vulnerable populations are the ones who suffer the greatest indignities, and the COVID-19 pandemic has been met with further atrocities toward immigrants and refugees at the whims of the Trump Administration, which could lead us through the start of 2021 or the start of 2025. We must continue to pivot to meet the demands of each day in our fight to ensure that no one looks away from the grave humanitarian crisis within our country. This requires innovation in the face of a global health crisis that presents new literal and existential threats with every passing moment and limits our ability to congregate in person –– a defining characteristic of grassroots activism.

As an organization and as an initiative, we have leveraged digital technology in unprecedented ways to ensure that our calls to action continue to mobilize, supplementing innovative socially distanced means of protest. We speak truth to power in the fight for social justice, and that clarity of voice and mission has amassed a committed social media following (Twitter: 187,000; Facebook: 124,000; Instagram: 142,000) ready to activate –– tweeting representatives, signing petitions, amplifying the stories of resilience that define our immigrant brothers and sisters. But we know that we cannot create lasting change alone. Today and tomorrow’s barriers will be overcome just as yesterday’s, through the power of coalition building with those organizations and governing bodies that similarly seek to dismantle the framework by which individuals seeking equitable access to safety and security are denied their basic human rights.

We are currently partnering with a growing coalition of direct services providers, organizations, and advocates such as Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Never Again Action, OxFam, Amnesty International USA and others on a coordinated campaign of targeted state level actions to immediately release families in detention, many of who are asylum seekers and refugees, to help mitigate the inevitable spread of COVID-19. Given the humanitarian challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and governors’ responsibility to protect the public health of their state residents, we are calling on governors to protect the rights of immigrants and refugees by urging Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release these families and individuals.

We create the space for change by building campaigns that educate and unite in ways that maximize the potential for empowering immigrants and refugees with the very safety and security they have been denied. We serve as the link between those who have been affected directly by prejudiced policies and those who stand in solidarity as allies. Examples of our model can be found in our comprehensive fight to abolish ICE and end family detention. 

In providing those who have suffered through the immigration system with tools to share their experiences, we envision a future where public pressure builds and there is an end to the ICE-police collaborations that have made detention possible throughout Texas. We grow that pressure through education, leveraging livestreams, workshops, and panels to outline the impact of coordination between law enforcement bodies. We build a foundation of community leadership through skills-sharing and direct engagement opportunities, creating a network of support for directly affected individuals that follows their guidance. And we coordinate actions within this network, as well as work with organizers all over Texas to build a collective voice of resistance.

Additionally, in presenting Americans with evidence that children are still being caged, we anticipate enough public resistance through direct action, online engagement, and fighting individual cases to end family detention across the country. While advocating for these families to be released on a case by case basis, we collaborate with our RAICES legal team to study and release information about trends of abuse and neglect.

RAICES Advocacy is supported through a charitable giving model, with funds primarily crowdsourced through the generosity of stakeholders in society who believe that all people should be treated with dignity, respect, and empathy. In 2019, RAICES received 415,000 donations from 140,000 unique donors in all 50 of the United States, as well as Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico and 77 countries. Our average donation was approximately $80. In order to sustain our efforts for the long-term, we intend to grow our base of support from those who give their time and money to ensure migrant justice. We can only do so by earning and maintaining the trust inherent in community-building, trust through values-based actions that increase positive outcomes for immigrants and refugees in a volatile environment.

RAICES Advocacy is an integral part of the RAICES mission interwoven within and throughout the scope of direct Legal and Social Services that the organization provides, as we also work to change immigration policy on a national scale. While audited financial statements are not yet publicly available, the organization’s Advocacy expense budget in 2019 was approximately $2,000,000, which was made possible by communities of support both within the United States and around the world that entrusted us with defending the human rights of immigrants and refugees. The need for our work not only continues in 2020, it grows, as does the need for support.

The Elevate Prize represents the values of collaboration and coalition building that are at the core of advocacy and activism. I am excited to call upon the vast network and resources made available through the prize to help us develop a tailored and comprehensive media and marketing campaign aimed at amplifying our fight for immigrant rights and inspiring a movement that profoundly advances racial equity and social justice in the United States. I also recognize this as an invaluable opportunity for professional development and mentorship that can reinforce and further the vision of RAICES Advocacy and make possible our theory of change. 

We seek to partner with organizations whose mission and vision align with our own. Throughout the 30 year history of RAICES, our attorneys and advocates have sought to uphold the dignity and human rights of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. With an emphasis on work that seeks to directly improve the lives of our communities and constituencies, we are eager to connect with organizations who provide direct services, resources, and engage in advocacy efforts through high impact litigation, grassroots organizing, digital and social media, and partnerships. As detention abolitionists, we are especially eager to connect with organizations who seek an immediate moratorium on deportations and sweeping reform of immigration law enforcement and criminal justice reform.