In his first week in office, President Biden issued a sweeping order to stop deportations for 100 days. While that order is tied up in court, the Biden administration has moved forward with deporting thousands of people, mostly Black immigrants to Haiti, Mauritania, and Cameroon. Many of these deportees are infants and children.
You may not have heard this news. Due to pervasive anti-Blackness within the immigrant rights movement and our country’s long history of white supremacy, Black immigrants are often overlooked and discounted from mainstream immigrant rights conversations. In order to truly transform our immigration system into one that is fair and humane, our experience must be centered and our leadership and voices must be uplifted.
Black immigrants make up approximately nine percent of the entire foreign-born population in the United States, totaling nearly five million people. Our families are deeply rooted in this country and in the state of Tennessee, but for too long our voices have been left out of the movement for safety and justice for all.
This is the reason we have gathered Black immigrant leaders across the state to form TIRRC’s first Black Immigrant Caucus, a dedicated space to connect, process, learn, dream, and ensure our voices are heard and our concerns are addressed. The group is made up of grassroots leaders from across the state of Tennessee, representing folks of different generations, immigration statuses, and countries of origin, including Jamaica, Congo, Haiti, Kenya, and more.
Together we can transform our state, make it more inclusive, and bring lasting and positive change for the Black immigrant community through highlighting issues facing our families, empowering community leaders, and holding our elected officials accountable to their promises.
That means pushing the Biden administration to stop detaining and deporting Black immigrants. Black immigrants are over-represented in the deportation pipeline due to the surveillance, over-policing, and police brutality aimed at Black bodies in this country. We make up only 7% of non-citizens in the country, but over 20% of people facing deportation are Black. Besides, we also face significantly longer detention times and are placed in solitary confinement six times as often as the detained population at large. It also means making sure that leaders at the local and state level listen to our concerns and implement policies that protect our families and give us opportunities to thrive.
We must celebrate the resiliency and power of the Black diaspora and daily recommit ourselves to the work that we must do collectively. We hope you join us in this work to organize and empower Black immigrants in Tennessee:
If you are a Black immigrant, connect with us and join us.
Take action to demand the Biden administration and Congress stop the detention and deportation of Black immigrants and root out white supremacy from our immigration system.
Together, we can empower and engage our Black immigrant community to fully participate in the political process to change and influence legislation to help all of our families prosper, no matter who we are, where we come from, or the color of our skin.