At the 2025 AFT Washington Biennial Convention, the Cesar Chavez Human Rights Award was given to eight organizations working to support immigrants. In the current culture of fear and oppression, we celebrate their crucial work. '
The organizations, along with a summary of what they do and specific highlights of their work, are below.
Aid Northwest
AIDNW's mission and vision is to support immigrants in detention and upon release. A welcome community that affirms the dignity of all immigrants. A volunteer-based organization that welcomes immigrants after they are released from the ICE federal detention center in Tacoma. The day-to-day operations are run exclusively by volunteers who are passionate about providing basic needs services to immigrants. These services range from greeting with a friendly welcome message to those who have been incarcerated to connecting them instantly with their closest relatives who often have not seen each other in a few weeks or several years and are unaware of their location.
AIDNW Highlights:
- Provides quick meals, clothing, phone cards, plane tickets, or help with booking flights as most detainees are from foreign countries and have limited contacts in the U.S.
- Provide deportation bags, visitation at the detention center, and facilitate short-term housing.
- The organization is a “well-oiled machine” that operates through the wisdom of founding volunteers and their efforts in recruiting and constantly training newcomers.
AIDNW is a unique organization that started through grassroots efforts in downtown Tacoma and is still operating under the same simple principles as the day it started.
Casa Latina
Casa Latina is a nonprofit worker center that advances the power and well-being of Latino immigrants through employment, education, and community organizing. Their vision is that the Latino community participates fully in the economy and democracy of this country. Their daywork center, workers’ defense committee, and leadership programs are all focused on giving the training, knowledge, and support needed for our communities to move toward greater self-sufficiency.
Casa Latina Highlights:
- Employment, their goal is to help break the cycle of poverty within the Latino immigrant community by helping them find day work to meet their financial needs. They have established minimum wages above the state minimum wage for the workforce.
- Teach free English language classes for immigrant workers, job skills, safety training, and worker rights workshops.
- Community Organizing, provides engagement, immigration reform advocacy, women’s leadership groups, and worker rights organizing.
Community to Community
Community to Community mission and vision are: We believe that another world is possible and we are active participants in other self-determined people’s movements. We strive to reclaim our humanity by defining power to end structural racism and all of its manifestations including settler colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy in their external and internalized forms.
Community to Community Highlights:
- Confront racism in existing power structures.
- Empower under-represented people to have an equal voice in decision-making processes.
- Develop cross-cultural awareness with information.
- Restore justice to our food, land, and cultural practices.
- Promote community relationships towards self-reliance.
- Work in solidarity with those who strive towards human rights for all races and genders.
- Demand demonstrates that the value of feminine intellect and leadership is recognized.
La Resistencia
La Resistencia is a grassroots organization led by undocumented immigrants and people of color who have been oppressed by the immigration enforcement system. We are based in Washington State working to end the detention of immigrants and stop deportations. Originally founded on March 7th, 2014; to support a hunger strike launched by over 1200 people detained in Tacoma to protest their confinement, La Resistencia began under the umbrella of the national #Not1More campaign as “NWDC Resistance.” Today, La Resistencia is led by experts who know the system better than anyone, those who have been detained or have had relatives in deportation proceedings. We support and engage with people detained at the Northwest Detention Center who organize for their survival and in protest against the detention and deportation regime. We are a grassroots immigrant-led group that organizes across the prison barrier. Our goal is to shut down the NWDC and to end all detentions and deportations in Washington State.
La Resistencia Highlights:
- Organized by former and current detainees across the prison border.
- Is the only organization observing local flights and is now preparing to monitor deportation flights nationally.
- Legislative efforts such as SHB1470- WA state agencies are now obligated to inspect unannounced complaints about detention conditions, and they provide private rights of law to detained people.
- Coordinates Solidarity Days outside NW Detention Center
- Monitoring deportation flights out of King County Airport
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project Mission promotes justice by defending and advancing the rights of immigrants through direct legal services and provides systemic advocacy and community education.
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project's vision is to strive for justice and equity for all persons, regardless of where they were born.
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project Highlights:
- Provides legal advice to immigrants, litigation services, and assisting asylum seekers.
- Provides family visa workshops, and assists with DACA information services.
- Legal immigration resources presentations, assist people with disabilities advocacy and support.
- Offers an extensive network of legal advice to support immigrants in their journey through the often confusing and daunting legal scenarios and policies.
One America
One America's mission and vision are to advance the fundamental principles of democracy and justice at the local, state, and national levels by building power within immigrant communities in collaboration with key allies. Their vision is - to envision a peaceful world where every person’s human rights and dignity are respected, where communities appreciate differences and stand together for justice and equality, and where each person contributes to the common good.
One America Highlights:
- Building community power across Washington state, building immigrant and refugee power, working with local communities to build power and advance just policies and vision for our communities.
- Promotes dual language classrooms that celebrate multilingualism.
- Work to keep families together and free from incarceration at the hands of an out-of-control ICE agency.
- Work with local communities by laying groundwork for all voices to be heard, and to make sure the government represents the voices of all people. To create a social safety net we all need to be able to live free and thrive.
- Work with social media platforms to reach younger audiences to educate them about the importance of a just immigration system influenced by the ICE agency and immigration.
Tsuru for Solidarity
Tsuru for Solidarity's mission. Tsuru for Solidarity is a nonviolent, direct-action project of Japanese American social justice advocates and allies working to end detention sites and support directly impacted immigrant and refugee communities that are being targeted by racist, inhumane immigration policies. We stand on the moral authority of Japanese Americans who suffered the atrocities and legacy of U.S. concentration camps during WWII and we say, “Stop Repeating History!”
Seattle Chapter of Tsuru for Solidarity Highlights:
- Works closely with La Resistencia such as participating in the hunger strike following the death of Charles Leo Daniels on March 7, 2024, and monitoring deportation flights out of King County airport.
- Liberation Obon September 2024 outside NW Detention Center.
- Day of Remembrance Solidarity Day February 2025 outside NW Detention Center.
- Mobilizes taiko (Japanese American drums) to play outside the Detention Center in solidarity: one of the few things that detainees inside can hear.
Washington Immigration Solidarity Network
Washington Immigration Solidarity Network (WAISN) is an immigrant-led, volunteer-driven state-wide coalition that has built collective power to protect immigrant rights, defend immigrants, and advocate for greater opportunities and rights of immigrant communities to strengthen and expand the freedom to thrive.
They grew out of the direct threat posed by the Trump administration following his 2016 election and have remained active ever since.
Washington Immigration Solidarity Network Highlights:
- Their rapid response team is a support service for ensuring that immigrants are not alone and that their experience is documented when ICE seeks to detain them.
- They have established a robust Know Your Rights training and have made it available to thousands of people in Washington State.
- They have advocated for paid pathways for undocumented students, healthcare access, unemployment benefits, and more while also providing direct support to immigrants who are threatened with deportation, detention, and other injustices.