Policy Advocacy

Public policy is a vehicle to improve the lives of immigrants and refugees, to transform communities, and to build power for collective liberation, and by organizing and leading policy advocacy campaigns, immigrants and refugees engage in and impact issues that are directly relevant to their everyday lives. 

Through community organizing and direct action, legislative advocacy, and strategic communications we are working to: defend communities from deportations and dismantle harsh immigration enforcement systems, defend refugee resettlement and reform our nation’s federal immigration laws, advance economic justice and opportunity, defend workers’ rights, and advance equitable climate justice policies.

Our Work

Our Process

An attentive crowd of TIRRC community members smiling and listening to a speaker

Identify

To build community-driven campaigns that address our most pressing needs, we first identify issues that are widely and deeply felt across our membership base through discussions, surveys, and policy analyses.

A group of members sitting in a circle holding small neon posters and having a discussion

Strategize

Once a campaign has been identified, our members work with our staff to develop a strategy and lead the campaign, then together we conduct research, analyze power structures, develop messaging, and plan direct actions.

A TIRRC speaker in a hot pink blazer addressing a crowd behind a podium

Lead

By intentionally investing in the leadership of our members, TIRRC equips leaders to advocate for our communities and multiply the impact of our statewide movement.

Policy Advocacy at Every Level

  • No matter who we are or where we are from, we all deserve the freedom to move, the freedom to stay, and the freedom to thrive in our communities. That's why we advocate for fair, compassionate immigration policies at the federal level that will create a system that values all people and provides a safe pathway for those seeking community in our nation, both at our borders and through the refugee resettlement program and asylum system. Additionally, our communities have advocated for decades for permanent protections from deportation, and we will continue to call for a pathway to citizenship for all–no exceptions. From advocating for the original passage of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, to defending it at every legal challenge, we are committed to fighting for the opportunity to become a US citizen for DACA recipients and all undocumented Americans.

    Along with casting a new vision for our immigration system, the federal government significantly impacts the lives of immigrants and refugees through legal and administrative policies in a variety of federal agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. When these agencies add rules that harm our communities, we organize our members to submit public comments and advocate for more equitable policies that help all of our families thrive.

  • While the federal government sets and changes policies that shape our immigration system, our state government can profoundly impact the ability of immigrants and refugees to fully participate and contribute to our communities. Our campaigns advocate for policies that encourage and support the inclusion of immigrants in our state, such as equitable access to government services in multiple languages and opportunities to obtain an affordable education. Due to increasing extreme anti-immigrant sentiment in our state legislature, we also work to hold the line and fight off harmful legislation, defending our values of who gets to be a Tennessean. Showing our power through individual meetings, Day on the Hill, direct actions, and speaking to the media is transformative for both our members and lawmakers, and we successfully defeat numerous anti-immigrant and anti-refugee bills each year.

    We also use a range of other tools, including administrative engagement and advocacy, to hold state and local agencies accountable to their civil rights obligations to immigrant community members. Many immigrant and refugee families in Tennessee encounter barriers accessing benefits and rights to which they are entitled by law. We work to ensure that immigrant and refugee families in Tennessee are treated fairly by governmental entities in the state.

  • Cities play an important role in ensuring immigrants and refugees can access opportunities that impact their daily lives while advancing a new vision of belonging in our communities. We work with municipalities across the state to identify opportunities for proactive policies that allow immigrants and refugees to fully participate in their communities, such as municipal identification programs, equitable investment in diverse neighborhoods, and inclusive disaster response efforts. We also use campaigns and legal strategies to dissuade collaboration between local government and immigration enforcement, defending our communities from family separation and deportation.

    By gaining rights and protections at the local level, we can make a tangible difference in the lives of our community members while creating a tipping point and opening space for legislative and judicial change at the national level. And by connecting our municipal policy campaigns to our civic engagement efforts, we engage immigrants and refugees around the issues that matter most to them, building power from the ground up to transform Tennessee and the South.