Save the Date: Workplace Raids Training Series
Save the date for this early 2025 monthly training series from the National Immigration Law Center and other national partners:
“As everyone knows by now, the Trump Administration plans to resume large-scale, worksite immigration raids. During Trump’s first term, workplace immigration raids upended communities, separated families, and resulted in the arrest of thousands of workers, many of whom were victims of labor abuse and exploitation. In preparation for the next administration’s resumption of this inhumane immigration enforcement tactic, we need strong networks in place to engage in effective and holistic raids resistance and response strategies to protect our communities, members, and neighbors.
Starting in January 2025, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and the Tennessee Immigration and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) will be launching a seven-part webinar training series on workplace raids resistance and response. The trainings will cover all facets of raids response from a power-building perspective and will be led by speakers with on-the-ground experience responding to workplace raids, including our experience responding to the 2018 raid at Southeastern Provision meatpacking plant in Bean Station, TN. The training series will cover the following topics:
Developing a Holistic Raids Response Strategy– This session will cover how to set up a raids response operation grounded in power-building and organizing principles to effectively triage a raid and build long-term, local leadership structures and organizational collaborations.
Scaling Up Short-Term Immigration Legal Defense Post-Raid – This session will cover systems for addressing immediate immigration needs post-raid, including establishing a hotline for families, best practices for intake and data entry, locating detained workers, liaising with consulates, and working with immigration attorneys on bond and deportation defense.
Communicating About the Raid to Build Power and Agency – This session will cover rapid response communications and media strategies post-raid to platform affected families and communities and their message, including creating a media plan, preparing spokespeople, drafting press statements, and avoiding communications pitfalls.
Investigating & Tackling Labor & Employment Abuses – This session will cover how to identify, screen for, and address labor and employment abuses in the workplace, including issue spotting, intake strategies, liaising with state and federal agencies, when to litigate, and how to form a powerful, worker-centric collaboration between workers, organizers, lawyers, and unions seeking justice for affected workers.
Investigating & Tackling Civil Rights Violations – This session will cover how to identify, screen for, and address civil rights violations committed during the raid by law enforcement using the federal civil rights case, Zelaya v. Hammer, that was filed as a result of the Bean Station, TN raid, as a model.
Navigating Intersections with Criminal Law & the Criminal Defense Bar – This session will cover what to do when the raid results in workers being criminally charged (e.g., identity theft, illegal reentry) and how liaising with the criminal defense bar can be a force multiplier in a raids response strategy.
Being an Organizational Plaintiff in a Raid-Related Case – This session will cover what it means to be an organizational plaintiff in a raid-related case (e.g., civil rights, FOIA), including the benefits of legal privileges protecting communications between membership organizations and legal organizations, the basics of organizational standing, the life of a case/what to expect, and an honest assessment of the risks and benefits of being an organizational plaintiff.
The trainings will begin the last week of January 2025 and will continue on a bimonthly basis through April. The trainings will be recorded and those recordings, in addition to referenced materials and resources, will be available on a secure link upon request. We will be in touch in early January with details about dates, times, and speakers. We look forward to seeing you all in January.
In Solidarity,
TIRRC & NILC
Jessie Hahn
Senior Counsel, Labor and Employment Policy
Pronouns: she/her/hers
National Immigration Law Center
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