The Undocumented Experience: Best Practices Tool for Community Advocacy and Support from Nonprofits

Unauthorized immigration has been at the forefront of national socio-political debates over the past decade. The prevailing approach to immigrant integration in the United States is for individuals to use their own networks, and community resources to assimilate in their new communities. Yet a framework of support for newcomer immigrant integration does not exist, which promotes vastly different experiences depending on the state individuals migrate to where differing local, state, and federal sociopolitical contexts that define these experiences, particularly for undocumented individuals. The lack of an intentional support for this population furthers the experience of discrimination, racial profiling, fear of immigration raids and deportation, family separation, etc. A curriculum was developed as a tool for nonprofits to improve their method of engaging and working with undocumented immigrants with particular emphasis on the culturally relevant aspects that affect these communities, historical context as it relates to US government’s intervention in the socio-political stability of Central American countries, and the role of nonprofits when providing support for undocumented communities