BAJI: Building the Bridge between Immigration Reform and Black Justice

BAJI, or the Black Alliance for Just Immigration was founded in April of 2006 in response to the large mobilization around immigration bills that were proposed by the US Congress at the time. The organization serves to rally politically around Black immigrants who are disproportionately deported and abused by the United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Additionally, it is a continuation of the work of the Priority Africa Network, whose mission is to bring together Black people from all over the world into dialogue to discuss the issues that divide these communities in the United States. BAJI has locations in New York, Georgia, California and Arizona and each chapter organizes locally to combat immigration legislation in their respective communities. BAJI also created the Black Immigration Network, which seeks to bring together these chapters, but most importantly, a host of black social justice organizations around the topic of immigration. I think this organization is especially important to archive because it responds to the oft erased intersection of blackness and immigration, while also engaging black immigrants, refugees, and native born citizens in a larger call towards racial, social, and economic equality.

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Join @BAJItweet and @nonewjails_nyc to demand that the community board Vote NO on the Mayor's plan to expand the NYC jail system to build a jail in downtown Brooklyn. The City should use the $11 billion to invest in our communities that will make jails irrelevant in New York. pic.twitter.com/RchsKnh4fy

— BAJI (@BAJItweet) May 6, 2019

This is a tweet highlighting an event being sponsored by the Brooklyn, New York chapter of BAJI and the prison abolition organization, No New Jails. They are inviting their followers to attend a community board event to demand that the board do not support the Mayor’s plan to expand jails in downtown Brooklyn.

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BAJI joins the #CountMeIn 2020 Campaign and releases a video explaining why the question of citizenship being added to the census is another form of racism and immigrant control.

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This is a BAJI report on the state of Black female immigrants in the United States. BAJI has several reports like this, that aim to educate other organizations and their community on the facts of immigration in this country. This report uses simple graphics to make the information more accessible and appealing to the eye.