Advocacy
This section of the toolkit provides information about civic engagement around critical issues such as detention, deportation, discrimination, and racism effecting our patients and their communities. Included in this section is information on changing your instituion, contacting your representatives regarding ICE and immigration policy as well as tips to follow as you attend rallies or protests.
Public Health Awakened has a short guide for actions folks in public health can take now to protect vulnerable immigrant families. Here are things you can do now:
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Action #1: Continue to promote health agency policies to provide services to all people, and to ensure all people understand that they are welcome at the agency
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Action #2: Support cities, counties, and states that pledge to provide sanctuary in different forms to undocumented residents and to reject 287(g) agreements
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Action #3: Advocate that local and state government create a legal defense fund for undocumented residents
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Action #4: Connect undocumented clients and their families with legal rights and community organizing groups
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Action #5: Join/build alliances that cross issue areas and include immigration
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Action #6: Encourage and support the efforts of sister agencies, including in criminal justice, to protect undocumented people and their families
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Action #7: Encourage labor enforcement to adopt and implement policies that protect worker rights, regardless of immigration status
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Action #8: Review other health agency policies and services, considering how undocumented populations may be impacted
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Action #9: Work to change a narrative that portrays undocumented people negatively
Tools for Organizing
Developing a Successful Strategy
How do we get institutional support for policies that ensure clinic and hospital spaces are the safe spaces they need to be to best serve our patients?
Asking for new policies and support of existing policies assumes that advocates are using the structures of the institutional system to implement change.
Organizing Questions
1) Who are your allies and stakeholders? Is anyone else doing similar work and can you join forces? Are you organizing with attention to inclusion and anti-racist practices?
2) Who holds power at your institution and what do they have control over (i.e. make sure you are asking the right people for the right things)?
3) What is the expected response of the power holders to your asks?
4) What is the best way to convince the power holders? What if that is unsuccessful? (i.e. your first step may be a meeting, and if that doesn't work, consider a petition, and then consider escalating to a protest or direct action, etc)
5) What does success look like? How will you and organizational leaders know that you have achieved success (i.e., how will the group be held accountable?)
Things to Think About
1) Anticipate the concerns of power holders & address them in your presentation before the concern arises (funding, time, & political feasibility)
2) Make your asks feel like logical inevitabilities consistent with the organization's priorities
3) This toolkit was designed in part for advocates to use as they push for institutional policies, in case they receive responses such as - "Look, the institution doesn't need to do anything, it's all right here."
4) It is possible that you also have a clinical leadership team that is supportive but has not yet thought that they need to operationalize a plan in case of an ICE visit. In that case, it will likely be helpful to bring the policies and flow diagrams linked below to meetings with leadership.
Organizing Resources
There are lots of excellent guides to organizing and facilitating change.
Below, you will find a few key slides from Organizing 101, a guide put together by Patricia Arroyos for the University of California Student Association and the United States Student Association.
The next box has some links to a few organizing slides available on the Internet.
Organizing Guides
Organizing 101 Full Presentation
Full presentation put together by University of California Student Association & the United States Student Association. Good overview of strategies for organizing and useful tools to use when planning campaign.
The Commons: Social Change Library
Educational resources on topics ranging from working in groups to creative activism The Power Mapping Session is linked here
Strategies, tactics and tips for social and political change
Founded in 2017, the Resistance School offers educational materials and resources for community mobilization.
Contacting Representatives
How to contact & what to say
Find Your Representative
Click the button to reach Common Cause
Enter your address find contact information for your elected officials
Sample Call Script
You: Hello, my name is [insert name]. I'm a consultant from [home town or zip code]. Could I please speak to the Legislative Assistant who handles immigration?
Office: Hi, this is [name of office assistant], how can I help you?
You: I am calling today because I am deeply concerned about ongoing ICE raids and encounters across the country, as well as recent legislative efforts to expand ICE's authority. I urge [representative name] to oppose any measures that harm immigrant communities and disrupt access to essential services.
Optional: Share a story about a patient or community impact. Thank you for your time.
If leaving a voicemail, leave your full street address so your call is tallied.
More Ways to Contact your Respresentatives
Enter your address & pick your issues to get appropriate phone numbers and call scripts. Available as an app.
Provides summaries detailing upcoming bills while easing the process of sharing your thoughts with your representative.
Turns a text from your phone or Facebook into a fax that is sent to your representative. To get started, text RESIST to 50409.
Sanctuary Policies Across the USA
Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC)
State Map on Immigration Enforcement 2024
The map represents the degree to which state policies limit or expand involvement in immigration enforcement, based on an analysis of current state laws.
San Francisco Office of Civic Engagement & Immigrant Affairs
Information & FAQs about San Francisco's Sanctuary City Ordinance. Also includes link to most recent version of ordinance.
Sanctuary Policities
Sanctuary cities & states
"Sanctuary" cities, counties, and states generally limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Local governments are under no legal obligation to assist with civil immigration enforcement—any collaboration with ICE is entirely voluntary.
The term "Sanctuary" is loosely defined and can mean different things. Some areas have formal policies, while others offer verbal commitments to support immigrants. Even where formal policies exist, their scope varies widely. It is crucial to note that "Sanctuary" is not a legal or uniformly defined term.
Although it is important for cities to have clear & comprehensive sanctuary policies, it is even more critical to ensure that county and state governments have unambiguous, detailed policies against cooperation with civil immigration enforcement.
This article explores some of the implications of CA as a Sanctuary State under a second Trump administration. Below, you'll find details on the value of sanctuary policies and links to articles and reports on the state of sanctuary across the U.S. As this landscape is rapidly changing, refer to the listed organizations' websites for the latest updates.
The Value of Sanctuary
At the county level, the immigration and criminal justice systems have become very intertwined. Immigrants who have not been convicted of any offense can become victims of an unjust system—one that denies immigrants the right to a public defender and due process because immigration enforcement is treated as civil law. Often, immigrants are detained without access to legal counsel or even a right to a bond hearing, in for-profit detention centers.
Beyond being a gross violation of human rights, this system also creates a climate of fear among immigrant communities. As a result, people in crisis are less likely to seek help from public services, such as healthcare, food assistance, and support for victims of crime.
Resources for Support and Advocacy
Family Separation
Creating Policies to Protect Patients
Family separation has devastating physical, emotional, and psychological effects on children, parents, and entire communities. Forced separation due to immigration policies can cause toxic stress, trauma, and long-term health consequences, including anxiety, depression, and PTSD. These harms disproportionately affect marginalized communities already facing systemic inequities.
Health Impacts of Family Separation
Family separation is devastating for children, families and communities. Impacts include:
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Toxic Stress: Disrupts children’s brain development and affects long-term mental and physical health.
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Emotional Trauma: Increases risk of depression, anxiety, and PTSD in children and parents.
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Chronic Illness: Heightened stress weakens immune responses, contributing to conditions like heart disease and diabetes.
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Educational and Social Challenges: Separated children often struggle academically and socially due to instability and trauma.
Supporting Intersectionality
Supporting Immigrants with Intersectional Identities
Immigration policies do not affect all people in the same way. For individuals with multiple marginalized identities—such as immigrants who are also Black, LGBTQ+, undocumented, disabled, or from low-income backgrounds—the impact of these policies can be particularly severe. Structural barriers, discrimination, and compounding vulnerabilities make it harder to access healthcare, legal protection, and community support.
Below, we have compiled resources that specifically address the unique challenges faced by immigrants with intersectional identities. These materials offer guidance, advocacy tools, and support networks to help individuals navigate these complex systems. We are still working on this section, so please let us know if you have any resources to share!
Resources
A network fighting to create space for currently and formerly undocumented Black immigrants to not only survive but thrive.
Asian American Advancing Justice
Fighting for civil rights and empowering Asian Americans to create a more just America for all.
The LGBT Asylum Project is the only San Francisco nonprofit organization exclusively dedicated to providing accessible legal representation for LGBT asylum seekers who are fleeing persecution due to their sexual orientation, gender identity and/or HIV status.
Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health
Resources to support mental health of LGBTQIA+ people, including a list of articles that discuss LGBTQ Immigrant issues
Protests & Civil Disobedience
A Quick Primer on Protesting
This section outlines how you can effectively demonstrate, protest,
and share your voice. Below are helpful resources and safety tips to follow:
A Few Key Tips
1) If applicable, use or "donate" your privilege to stand up for people at rallies who are more likely to be targeted by police and opponents of your cause.
-If police are talking with someone or arresting someone, stand nearby to monitor the situation
-Use video to record the encounter (this is legal if you are in a public space. State: "I am recording").
2) Always remember to follow the lead of those most affected by what you are protesting.
3) The National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense provides legal observers for protests & legal support for protesters in the event of an arrest. They wear neon green hats.
4) Know the SF/Bay Area Bay Area Jail Hotline: 415-285-1011
Protesting Safely
Infographic with basic information about how to stay safe at protests.
Know Your Rights: Free Speech, Protests, & Demonstrations in California
Link to page with full guide and one page handout (available in English & Spanish).
Know Your Rights at Demonstrations & Protests
Interactive webpage reviewing your right to demonstrate and what to do if your rights are violated.
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