How Know Your Rights Workshops are Empowering Immigrants

Recently, Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s “Border Czar” complained that immigrants in Chicago were “too educated” because they know their basic rights.

That’s because UnidosUS Affiliates and other organizations have worked with elected officials to make sure that people know that everyone in the United States has certain rights, regardless of immigration status, and that they can assert them when approached by immigration agents. As a result, in the first weeks of the administration, one resident said, “Even though they wanted to create a spectacle here, they couldn’t do it.” 

Since the election, UnidosUS Affiliates and others across the country have been conducting Know Your Rights information sessions, which can make a critical difference. Participants are taught practical steps on how to respond when encountering immigration agents at their homes, on the street or at their workplace. They practice phrases to exercise their constitutional rights, such as “I do not give you permission to enter my home without a warrant signed by a judge.” When people know and assert their rights, it is possible to mitigate the indiscriminate immigration enforcement that the administration is carrying out by picking up anyone they encounter and profile instead of focusing on people who pose a national security or public safety threat.  

This effort can make a critical difference. It both provides community members with information they can use, but it also empowers them, as one person described, “fear has not paralyzed us.”  

In these first weeks of the administration, we have seen immigration enforcement actions in cities across the country that should alarm all of us. U.S. citizens have been arrested and detained, and there have been race-based stops. In one instance, it is reported that agents entered a workplace and “started separating the Spanish-speaking workers from the rest.” Documenting violations of law during enforcement actions is important because we all have a right to be free from racial profiling and unlawful arrests.

All of us can act in response to what we’re seeing in our communities and in the news.  

• Share Know Your Rights information so that people are prepared and know how to respond if they encounter immigration enforcement agents. 

• Find and connect with organizations preparing rapid response networks to support community members in the aftermath of immigration enforcement actions.