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Community Organizing
Migrantes Unidos
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In 2020, María co-created a support and advocacy group for asylum seekers fighting digital surveillance in the St. Louis Metro Area by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The project pays asylum seekers to provide peer support and think critically about how to fight electronic detention and surveillance. Members of Migrantes Unidos exchange information, support, and ideas as they build community. The group continues to be a space that centers asylum seekers as intellectuals and movement leaders in their fight. Key partners in this endeavor are fellow co-creator Dr. Adriano Udani and the Inter-Faith Committee on Latin America.
Migrantes Unidos developed the Recruit, Inform, Center, Action Model (journal article forthcoming) that centers immigrants as leaders in analyzing and dismantling the system-level violence that harms their communities. In 2021, Henry Luce Foundation awarded Migrantes Unidos $250,000 to replicate this model of collaboration outside of Missouri. The model is currently being used in the Boston area with undocumented immigrants fighting for just treatment.
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