Online Training: How to Fight Back for Immigrant Rights

Our "How to Fight Back on Immigrant Rights" series is back. In these series we highlight members and staff from NEA Affiliates around the country doing the important work of fighting back for immigrant rights. You can learn from their on the ground organizing tactics and techniques, and then stick around for help and brainstorming about how to begin or continue developing your own local campaigns for immigrant rights.

Over the past year and a half, members of the Sussex County Education Association (NJEA) have strengthened community alliances rooted in the belief that educators and union members have a responsibility to advocate not only for public schools and public educators but also for the students and families we serve. As attacks on immigrant communities have intensified, our union, alongside local advocacy groups, has organized, spoken out, rallied, and educated the public in defense of immigrant students and their families, including efforts to oppose the opening of another detention center in our own backyard. In a primarily rural-suburban and politically conservative county, some legislators and community members have attempted to dismiss this work as partisan or outside the role of a union, but we firmly reject that narrative because immigrant rights are an education issue. When students are detained, threatened with detention, or forced to live in fear for their family members, their ability to learn, participate, and thrive in school is directly impacted. Educators witness firsthand the emotional toll that fear, instability, and trauma place on children, and we understand that students cannot succeed academically when they do not feel safe. That is why we continue to fight, advocate, and stand alongside our students and families in defense of their dignity, safety, and right to an education free from fear.

Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2026
Time: 6-7:30pm ET
Location: Zoom