2025 AIW – We Declare and Affirm: Immigrants Are People Who Have Inherent Worth and Inalienable Rights

Adopted by the 2025 UUA General Assembly

Grounding

As Unitarian Universalists, we affirm the sacredness of every human being and our shared humanity across lines of culture, experience, and theology. Our faith compels us to uphold the inherent worthiness and dignity of all people, including immigrants, and to insist they be treated with love, compassion, and justice. We reject policies and practices that deny immigrants their basic human rights – especially the right to due process protected under the U.S. Constitution and international law.

Our UU values affirm that justice demands fairness and equal protection of all. Due process – a cornerstone of democracy – guarantees that no one is deprived of life, liberty, or property without a fair hearing. When immigrants are denied these rights, we are called to respond with moral clarity and courageous action.

The Crisis

Immigration is the first policy arena that the U.S. government has chosen to test the extent to which people are willing to “look the other way” as it escalates the use of authoritarian and autocratic measures to carry out its agenda. In recent months, we have witnessed escalating authoritarian and autocratic actions, including:**

Arrest of public leaders, like the Mayor of Newark, for supporting immigration justice, seemingly to chill dissent
Mass arrests, detentions, and deportations
Cancellation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and humanitarian parole
Family separations and prolonged child detentions
Use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to detain migrants and send them to foreign prisons without a court hearing
Dismantling Congressionally funded refugee and asylee resettlement programs
Abandonment of refugees and asylees already approved for entry
Militarization of the border and criminalization of migration

These actions dehumanize immigrants, refugees, and asylees and undermine foundational democratic principles. They betray our nation’s long history of immigration and the essential contributions of immigrants to its culture, values, and spirit.

People migrate for many reasons: war, violence, persecution, climate disruption, and economic devastation. Many flee because they love their families too much to stay. They deserve compassion, not criminalization and dignity, not detention.

Resolved:

We, the delegates of the 2025 UUA General Assembly, commit to the following actions in support of justice for the immigrants who are our friends, neighbors and valued members of our communities.

Personal Actions

Learn: Attend Know Your Rights, Know Your Risks, and Accompaniment
Support: Donate to and volunteer with national or local immigrant support groups, such as UURISE, NILC, CLINIC, CASA, and Resistencia en Accion NJ.
Speak Out: Write letters to the editor, contact media outlets to promote accurate coverage, and push back on anti-immigrant narratives.
Amplify: Post truthful, supportive content on social media to counter misinformation and oppose the criminalization of immigrant populations.
Show Up: Accompany migrants to court hearings and administrative meetings—offering transportation, emotional support, and language interpretation as needed.
Document: Take notes, make audio or video recordings of ICE-Immigrant interactions, particularly those that demonstrate the trauma the immigrants experience or excessive use of force or abuse.

Congregational Actions

Educate through worship services, training sessions on immigration justice, and seminars with speakers from immigrant-led organizations who can share their stories.
Partner with local migrant and refugee organizations to support individuals and families in need.
Fundraise to support local immigrant legal aid and services.
Coordinate with other congregations to build long-term, multifaith networks of resistance

Advocacy

Contact the Administration and members of Congress to oppose the huge increases in funding needed for mass roundups and detentions, mass deportations, and the new facilities to house tens of thousands of additional detainees.
Amplify calls to action from UUSJ, UUSC, and interfaith and secular partners in advocacy.
Participate in organized visits to Congressional offices to advocate for humane immigration laws and policies.

Urge the Administration to:

Halt indiscriminate raids, detentions, and deportations
End family separations
End violations of Sensitive Locations and Private Areas such as schools, hospitals, and places of worship

Urge Congress to:

Create pathways to permanent residency or citizenship for Dreamers, Afghan and Ukrainian refugees, TPS holders, and agricultural and essential workers
Increase funding for asylum officers and immigration courts to ensure fair and timely hearings
Resume efforts on legislation for comprehensive immigration reform
Reassert Congressional authority over immigration under Article 1 of the Constitution

Public Witness

Attend and promote vigils, protests, and rallies led by frontline and faith-based communities
Speak publicly as people of faith, who are committed to immigrant justice, and share our public witness
Wear UU “Side With Love” symbols to signal and sharpen our denominational presence.
Discern when to move beyond protest to nonviolent direct action and peaceful non-cooperation, as modeled by the US Civil Rights Movement, India’s Satyagraha Movement, and South Africa’s Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Now is the time to rise—to be the moral voice, the loving hands, and the brave hearts our world needs.

Let us not be bystanders to injustice.
Let us not offer thoughts and prayers where action is required.
Let us not forget that history is watching—and so are the generations to come.
Let us remember that the arc of history bends toward justice—but only when we bend it.

We are Unitarian Universalists. We side with love. We act in faith. We choose justice. And we will not be moved.

Supplemental Information

The Crisis

Judge scolds DOJ over Newark mayor arrest

US removes hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador despite court order to turn back deportation flights

Why U.S. citizen children sent with their deported moms can’t come back easily

Personal Actions

Know Your Rights Toolkit | Immigrant Legal Resource Center | ILRC

Know-Your-Rights-Risks-for-Immigrants-Allies-English.pdf

JusticePower – How-to Guide: Accompaniment | Justice Power

Accompaniment | Love Resists | UUA.org

Affiliate Directory | Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)