Fact-Finding Delegation on Migrant Crisis

In Response to Migrant Crisis, Elected Officials and Community Leaders Join Fact-Finding Delegation to Central American Countries

A delegation of elected officials, community leaders, legal experts, and journalists are traveling to observe country conditions in Central America. The delegation will closely examine the conditions that are contributing to the ongoing border crisis, and generating migrant caravans.

The delegation will raise awareness of the conditions driving migration from the unstable region, and the negative consequences that await immigrants, including recipients of humanitarian relief such as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), if they are forcibly deported by the Trump Administration to Central America. 

WHO: Massachusetts Rep. Nika Elugardo, Massachusetts Rep. Andy Vargas, Centro Presente, Alianza Americas, and Lawyers for Civil Rights.

WHAT: The delegation will meet with human rights groups, environmental justice leaders, and government officials in Central America, a region that has been wracked by escalating violence that has driven unprecedented levels of forced migration since the 1980s. Programmed activities include meetings with NGOs working directly with migrants, victims of gender-based violence, and farmers displaced by climate change.

WHEN: Monday, August 12 to Friday, August 16

This fact-finding trip follows two high-profile missions, including a Congressional delegation, organized by Alianza Americas, Centro Presente and Lawyers for Civil Rights in 2018, which produced a groundbreaking report detailing the extreme violence that plagues the region. The report is available here: http://lawyersforcivilrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Updated-TPS-Delegation-Report-July-2018.pdf

Follow the delegation on social media:

#TPSDelegation

#StandWithCentralAmerica

#CentralAmericanExodus

#DelegaciónPorCentroamérica

***

Established in 1981, Centro Presente is a member-driven, state-wide Latin American immigrant organization dedicated to the self-determination and self-sufficiency of the Latin American immigrant community of Massachusetts. Operated and led primarily by Central American immigrants, Centro Presente struggles for immigrant rights and for economic and social justice. Through the integration of community organizing, leadership development and basic services, Centro Presente strives to give our members voice and build community power.

Alianza Americas is a network of 50 immigrant-led organizations representing more than 100,000 families across the United States. It is the only US-based organization rooted in Latino and Caribbean immigrant communities that works transnationally to create an inclusive, equitable, and sustainable way of life.

Lawyers for Civil Rights fosters equal opportunity and fights discrimination on behalf of people of color and immigrants. We engage in creative and courageous legal action, education, and advocacy in collaboration with law firms and community partners. Lawyers for Civil Rights and our community allies filed the first lawsuits in the country against the Trump Administration to protect sanctuary cities; to save humanitarian protections on behalf of Central American, Haitian, and Liberian immigrants; and to block immigration arrests in courthouses.