Friday June 20, 2025 is World Refugee Day, and Immigrant Heritage Month is celebrated throughout the month of June. Both offer moments for reflection and encouragement as those of other nations come to US shores to help us form a more perfect union.
Human migration is a human endeavor, repeating a pattern that has existed for millennia. People leave one place. People come to another. Migration has global and national implications, creating transnational conversations and sparking political debate. Ultimately though, immigration is local as people settle, build relationships and participate in their local community.
At this moment of friction and fracture, we have the choice to embrace the immigrants who are close by, to support them and to journey with them in what may be their darkest hour. You can make it your finest one. Loving and caring for our neighbor is not illegal. At least it shouldn’t be.
It’s easy to see how a shift towards prioritizing the care of people can lead to radically different results—humans are humanized, systems tilt toward equity, and policies start showing potential. We realize that when we take steps that harm first and heal second, third or never, we do violence to our neighbors and to ourselves.
We each have agency and the opportunity to show up for our neighbor. Consider recent events and trends that have affected our immigrant neighbors here in Atlanta and nearby:
- Uptick in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, including the arrest of journalist Mario Guevara and Dalton area student Ximena Arias-Cristobal
- The revocation of student visas at local colleges and universities like Georgia State University, Emory and more
- Federal funding cuts have affected key Atlanta immigrant-serving nonprofits
- The largest ICE detention center in the United States could potentially come to south Georgia
- Georgia is the eighth largest state by population, but has the fourth highest number of immigrants in detention
Consider also how Georgians are resisting these trends:
- Georgians largely reject mass deportations.
- Georgians are exercising their right to peaceful protest.
- Elected leaders are standing up for immigrants and refugees.
Georgia’s history also shows us what is possible:
- 2018 protests here helped end the separation of children from their families.
- In 2021, Gwinnett and Cobb stopped their participation in the 287(g) program, reducing local cooperation with ICE.
These latter two are victories that make the news, and there are thousands of smaller ones that you’ll never hear about: an immigrant entrepreneur starts a successful business; the child of immigrants becomes valedictorian; an immigrant spouse escapes their abuser with the help of a local nonprofit and local police.
Here at GBPI, we believe that policy can change lives for the better. If you’re interested, there are some things right now that we’re watching that you can do something about:
- At the federal level, “The Big Beautiful Bill,” currently in the Senate, takes away Medicare, SNAP (“food stamps”) and student financial aid from individuals lawfully residing here. This includes those who have received asylum, who are refugees, who are domestic abuse survivors and who have been victimized by sex traffickers.
- The bill also removes eligibility for the Child Tax Credit from about 2 million children who are US citizens or lawful permanent residents in the event both (or one if a single parent) parents file taxes but lack a Social Security number.
- Do something: Call your congressional representative, and tell them immigrants deserve to be able to meet their basic needs.
- At the state level, state policies continue to make life difficult for Georgia immigrants. Policy proposals that we’ve seen recently that harm immigrants include making it difficult for high school students to access dual enrollment through which they can earn college credit and punishing local jurisdictions for taking flexible approaches to building rapport between immigrants and police.
- Do something: Talk to your state senator or representative, and tell them to support immigrant communities.
These are just two options, and there are thousands.
No matter what something you do, the best something you can do is to love your neighbor. After that, the next choice becomes easy.
GBPI Immigration Resources
