What this North Carolina activist says we need to move immigration rights forward in the South – Tennessean

Stefania Arteaga is the Regional Immigrants' Rights Strategist for the ACLU of North Carolina.(Photo: Contributed by Stefania Arteaga)

For Stefania Arteaga, the fight for immigration rights is a deeply personal mission.

When she was 7 years old, for safety reasons,Arteaga and her family moved to the U.S. from El Salvador.Her childhood was defined by moments that illuminatedexperiences similar to many Central American immigrants.

Her family was in New Bedford, Mass., when theyexperienced one of the largest ICE raids of the Bush administration, she said. After moving to North Carolina following the 2008 financial crisis, her journalist mother began covering deportations at a time when North Carolinas Latino population was rapidly growing.

Arteaga went to work in her own way.Sheco-foundeda grassroots group, Comunidad Colectiva and pushedto elect a newsheriff, whounlike his predecessor,refused to cooperate with ICE. The groupalso fought against an uptick in ICE traffic stopsduring the Trump administration, and their work was featured in the 2020 Netflix documentary "Immigration Nation."

Nowthe regional immigrants' rights strategist for the ACLU of North Carolina,Arteagais fighting against SB 101, which would require all local law enforcement agencies in North Carolinato cooperate with ICE.Arteaga spoke to USA Today's The American South about the immigrant experience, the power of grassroots organizing, and the systemic biases against Central American migrants.

The American South:There's a moment in the documentary where, after one of the traffic stops you arrive at to live stream, you get in your car and admit feeling afraid. You say, You never know what will happen. What's something that most Americans don't understand about (this specific)immigrant experience?

Stefania Arteaga: The fear. The fear of knowing that there's some intentional structures even, you know from your local government, that try to erase your existence. I think there's this common misconception that immigrants are here to steal jobs or take resources, but there's so many ways that we're not allowed any protections. That's something I saw clearly under the Trump administration, the way people were just trying to wipe their hands clean of anything that had to do with immigrants or immigrant support, just allowing the system itself to try to figure out how to continue to put us in the deportation pipeline. I think the structural racism that exists at state, local, even non-profit levels really affects us, and communities of color in general.

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TAS:How did your parents prepare you for that experience?

SA:Growing up, my dad was always really fearful for us. He constantly preached that we had to be twice as good, that any mistake that we could possibly commit could put us in a situation that would return us to a country that we hadn't seen since we were toddlers.

TAS:Was there a particular event growing up that drove home those challenges and that mantra of having to be twice as good?

SA:It wasn't until I was 18 when I was able to get my driver's license, when I saw folks in my neighborhood in East Charlotte repeatedly being stopped at driver's license checkpoints, because the police knew that they didn't have identifications, because they were taken away and having to pick up my neighbors knowing that it didn't matter that they were leaving church with their kids or going into the grocery store or leavinga soccer game. They were going to be repeatedly targeted, because law enforcement knew that they didn't have status, and they filled a quota.

TAS:In Immigration Nation, theres a white man who mentions being thankful that migrant workers are working on houses after a hurricane, but he adds that they should follow the rules and become citizens. Is it as simple as some people think?

SA:I think it's so relative to where you are geographically. You know, if you're an immigrant, trying to seek refugee status through the court system in North Carolina, you only have about a 1% or 2% approval rating at the Charlotte immigration court. We have one of the most punitive immigration courts in the country, but we have one of the lowest denial rates. And so the immigration system as a whole has not been built to be unbiased. Simply obtaining status is just not attainable for many people, when there's intentional barriers for people to obtain them in the first place.

If we look at the history of migration in this country, as we've taken steps to provide pathways to legalization for communities, we've also seen significant increases in criminalization of those same communities. I don't think we're anywhere near reckoning with the fact that this country continues to exploit immigrant labor for profit. I think communities are still seen as disposable.

TAS:Your grassroots work with Comunidad Colectiva helped elect a sheriff in Mecklenburg County who opted out of the federal program that allowed the previous sheriff to work with ICE. What can other states in the South learn from that work?

SA:Shortly after 2018, we saw the same campaign tactics being utilized in DeKalb County, Georgia, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, immigrant communities, building real intentional coalitions around solidarity and mutual understanding of policing. I think we're seeing what community building looks like throughout the South, and how we can really question elected officials and law enforcement who are elected and accountable to communities. I think we're seeing it slowly but surely across the country. Progress is done, at the end of the day, at the grassroots level, and I think that's what we try to accomplish here in Charlotte is making sure that communities who are over-policed understand that their Black and Brown brothers are also being over-policed. I think it was that education that really helped us have an intentional community conversation about this.

TAS:What have you learned about grassroots organizing that helps build community-wide support?

SA: You build family, and organizing is a lineage of people that are planting little seeds here and there over time that create generational change. Change doesn't come quickly. We slowly build it together.

Note: The interview was edited for length and clarity.

This story is part of Shaping the Souths Future, a Q&A series byThe American South, centered on courageous conversations about the topical issues of our time.

News tips? Questions? Call reporter Andrew Yawn at 985-285-7689 or email him at ayawn@gannett.com. Sign up for The American South newsletter.Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

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What this North Carolina activist says we need to move immigration rights forward in the South - Tennessean