Thread by @CosechaMovement

A look at Cosecha in the last decade...

2013: Comprehensive immigration fails in Congress, again. A group of immigrant rights & labor organizers come together to figure out why we *still* can't win reform for the 11 million undocumented immigrants. washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/w…

2015: After over a yr of strategizing, Cosecha launches with its first training.

Our biggest insight: electing Dems and lobbying for CIR isn't working bc we just don't have the leverage. But there was a time when we did have it...the mega marches of 2006. npr.org/templates/stor…

So Cosecha launches with a vision: What if undocumented immigrants recreated the mega marches, at the time were the largest protests in US history? What if millions of immigrant workers went on strike and took to the streets, not just for a day, but for an entire week?

2016: Immigrants & allies start organizing full-time (w/o a salary) to build infrastructure for a new movement for undocumented workers.

We do dozens of trainings, experiment w/ creative actions, and support the #Buffalo25 after a workplace raid.

Then, Trump is elected.

In response, we organize hundreds of #SanctuaryCampus walkouts on colleges across the country.

2017: Our growing movement responds to Trump's attacks. On May 1 we go on the offensive w "A Day Without Immigrants" marches across the country.

Later, Trump repeals DACA. We say "without DACA, without fear" as DACA recipients are arrested at Trump Tower.

Following the DACA repeal, the year ends with the #NoDreamNoDeal showdown over the Dream Act & the budget in Congress. 7 DACA recipients and 1 ally go on jail strike, refusing to give their names and demanding a clean Dream Act. Congress caves.

cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sa…

2018: This is in many ways a year of reckoning for us. Our strategy did not anticipate Trump. There is no hope of CIR or a Dream Act. And activists are burnt out after fighting for years, decades.

So invest in local campaigns to rebuild the movement and find new leaders.

We launch "Driving Without Fear" campaigns in several states, supporting directly affected local leaders to organize their communities to fight for driver's licenses. Not having access to licenses puts millions of undocumented immigrants on a pathway to deportation.

Meanwhile, Trump's zero tolerance policy at the border puts family separation in the public spotlight and activates an unprecedented number of allies. Across the country, Cosecha activists join the #NoBusinessWithICE campaign targeting contracts with ICE.
mlive.com/news/grand-rap…

2019: After several yrs of organizing, we start to WIN. We win licenses for all for 500,000 immigrants in New Jersey. We end ICE holds/contracts in different counties. We are finishing the year with a strong, decentralized base committed to licenses today, papers tomorrow.

We also launched Dignity 2020, a national effort to hold Democratic candidates to a new standard on immigration. We're not playing by the old rule back--we're demanding what we really need. That starts with a moratorium on deportations on January 20, 2021.

We successfully pushed Bernie to support the moratorium. Other candidates, like Warren, have moved further left, say they will consider it. That's not a sufficient commitment, but it is a sign of the impact of pressure from the immigrant community.

https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1199751922196058112?s=20

And then there's Biden...

In 2019, we were honest about the pain the immigrant community experienced when Biden was VP. We were honest about the 3 million deportations. We knew we deserved better, and we said so.

So Biden told us to vote for Trump.🥴

https://twitter.com/CosechaMovement/status/1197752882168320005

This was a difficult decade for the immigrant right's movement. We started with the broken promises of Obama's 1st year in office. He finished his 8yrs without delivering on legalization for the 11 million. Then Trump attacked our community & helped pull the GOP to the far right.

But: we are building powerful new leadership for an immigrant workers movement.

We are telling the truth about what it will take to win.

We are grounded in a strategy that relies not on politicians, but on people and workers.

And we're going to fight like hell in 2020.

When Cosecha launched in 2015, we had a list of principles to guide our decentralized movement. Principle 9 is "All we need is already within our community now. We know that all the resources we need, including financial, are already in our community."

We really believe that.

From the beginning, our movement has been sustained by the generosity of our community, like families who give our organizers a meal and a place to stay.

If you want to be part of our community, we invite you to contribute or become a monthly sustainer:

secure.actblue.com/donate/cosecha…