INTERNATIONAL MIGRANTS ALLIANCE USA CHAPTER
The International Migrants Alliance (IMA) is the
first-ever global alliance of organizations of grassroots migrants, refugees and displaced peoples.
IMA currently has over 170 members
In more than 60 countries
with chapters in Canada, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, and Latin America.
Art by Victoria Lee @buoako buoako.com
HISTORY
Established in June 2008 in Hong Kong, the IMA aims to strengthen and put forward the voice of the grassroots migrants on issues affecting them and their families. From issues of remittance, to rights and welfare, to the resolution of forced labor migration, the IMA lays down its analysis from the grassroots migrants’ point of view and challenges the current system and its mechanisms like the Global Forum on Migration and Development. The IMA was established to empower migrant workers, immigrants, and refugees, particularly women and children, through their self-organization, help in their program for education, organization, and mobilization, to struggle for their rights and welfare, and to challenge imperialist globalization.
In 2011, IMA-USA was launched in the U.S. in New York as the first country chapter with over a dozen organizations formally joining the alliance. IMA-USA groups hosted the International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees 4 (IAMR4) in New York City in 2014 and partnered with Churches Witnessing with Migrants (CWWM) to counter the continued promotion of the Global Forum on Migration & Development (GFMD) by the U.N.
In 2018 IMA-USA pivoted its work to focus on the struggle of migrants at the U.S. border, grassroots campaigns against labor trafficking and migrant detention centers. By the time of the IMA 4th General Assembly in Mexico City in Nov 2018 and the World Social Forum on Migration, IMA, (including over 50 migrant participants from IMA-USA and IMA-Canada combined) expanded its membership and confronted the global crisis of forced migration, while also integrating with the 10,000+ Migrant Exodus in Mexico City. Since then, IMA-USA has launched a Border Solidarity campaign to expose the root causes of this exodus and resist all forms of criminalization, repression, detention, and deportation of migrants and refugees across the country.
