Meet Our Cohort
The Climate Justice Collaborative believes any effective movement strategy to align immigrant and climate justice movements, address climate change and its impacts on frontline communities, and prepare for a future of increased migration, must be rooted in local power-building organizations.
In October 2022, we launched our first cohort of six NPNA member organizations who we are partnering with to advance our three core issue areas at the state and local level. Together, we will create models and resources to scale across our movement.
Somos Un Pueblo Unido, New Mexico
For years, Somos has been organizing oil workers and their families around civil rights and economic justice issues in the Permian Basin. Along with other frontline organizations in the Power for New Mexico coalition, Somos has been fighting to ensure a just energy transition for frontline communities including immigrant workers and families whose hard and hazardous labor has been essential to the state’s economy.
The Climate Justice Collaborative will support Somos in their advocacy and organizing work to shape a new and just economy for immigrant workers and families in rural New Mexico. We will partner in developing and garnering support for policies that result in deep state and federal investments in a variety of workforce development programs that are inclusive and accessible, overcoming the barriers that immigrant workers face to workforce development and job readiness in new sectors of the economy including renewable energy. Somos’ cutting edge organizing work can become a blueprint for NPNA members and immigrant rights organizations in other fossil fuel producing states to organize workers towards a just transition.
Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition
Tennessee, like states across the Southeast, has one of the country’s fastest growing immigrant populations. The state is also experiencing increasingly frequent and destructive climate disasters – like massive tornadoes, historic flooding, heat waves, and power grid failures during winter freezes. Immigrant communities are often hit first and worst during extreme weather and are left behind in recoveries.
The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) will partner with the Climate Justice Collaborative to build a model for grassroots policy development. They will organize a multiethnic, multigenerational base of immigrants and refugees who have recently experienced climate disasters and extreme weather. Together, we will create a policy blueprint for how local governments can develop more equitable and inclusive responses to extreme weather and make climate justice a central pillar of the Nashville municipal elections and TIRRC’s non-partisan voter and candidate engagement work.
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), California
The Climate Justice Collaborative will partner with CHIRLA, one of California’s largest, membership-based immigrant rights organizations, to harness the power of immigrant communities across California to win major climate justice victories, address the unique impacts of the climate crisis on immigrant workers and families, and ensure immigrants aren’t left behind in the green economy. Through community organizing, CHIRLA will build a base of members who will shape and lead these campaigns for climate justice, including through the state’s Green New Deal table.
We will also partner with CHIRLA to build a base of people who were forced to migrate to the U.S. in whole or in part because of climate impacts. We will develop replicable models of community organizing and popular education, as well as models of organizing through legal services with CHIRLA’s legal team in Mexico and California. As we build these models we will identify and invest in leaders that can shape national advocacy around safe pathways for climate-displaced people.
Florida Immigrant Coalition
Immigrant communities in Florida are experiencing so many facets of the climate crisis: from rising sea levels, to climate gentrification, extreme heat and hurricanes. The Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC) has been on the frontlines of these crises, building power for climate justice in coalition with other frontline organizations. The Climate Justice Collaborative will be supporting two of FLIC’s climate campaigns that can create replicable models for other communities.
The first is supporting their work to protect communities from extreme heat through advocacy, education, and community engagement in collaboration with the Que Calor! Campaign, led by FLIC member WeCount!.Together we can build a campaign playbook for NPNA members in other states to advance heat protections. The Climate Justice Collaborative will also partner with FLIC in advocating for a just and equitable recovery after Hurricane Ian.
Woori Juntos, Houston, TX
Woori Juntos is a new Houston-based affiliate of NPNA member NAKASEC, the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium. Woori Juntos organizes a multigenerational base of low-income, Korean and Asian Americans, including those who are undocumented and formerly incarcerated. Houston and Texas are on the frontlines of the climate crisis – from more intense hurricanes, extreme heat, failing power grids during winter freezes, and heavily polluting industries.
The Climate Justice Collaborative will partner with Woori Juntos to invest in community-based strategies of disaster preparedness and resilience, including targeted outreach and education in the Korean community and transforming the Korean Community Center into an accessible disaster relief site during extreme weather. Woori Juntos will also lead a grassroots policy development process through hosting a series of Community Conversations with community members about their experience with extreme weather, disaster recovery, and other climate impacts. Through sharing stories and connecting their experiences to policies and systems, community members will shape policy solutions and priorities for more just and equitable resilience and recovery.
Louisiana Organization for Refugees and Immigrants
The Louisiana Organization for Refugees and Immigrants (LORI) was founded in 2017 by refugees and immigrants from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East to support newcomers to Louisiana. Since then, LORI has been on the frontlines of responding to hurricanes, which are becoming more frequent and intense as a result.
The Climate Justice Collaborative will partner with LORI to stand up programming to support immigrants and refugees in Louisiana in preparing for hurricanes and other climate impacts, including community education on evacuations, home insurance, and how to stay safe when working outdoors in extreme heat. We will also co-create models for community-based disaster rapid response. Through this service development and delivery, we will create a services-to-organizing model, identifying the most pressing needs and issues facing communities regarding recovery and resilience and building power with LORI members to lead powerful advocacy campaigns, like establishing language access policies in state and local emergency management departments.