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By: Charlene Muhammad
Contributing Writer
LOS ANGELES – The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) strives to curb hate against Black migrants through community power-building and care.
Activists from human rights, anti-Apartheid, and national and international civil rights sectors started BAJI in 2006 to ensure Black migrants were engaged in the effort for immigration reform. Primarily, Black immigrants were totally invisible from conversations regarding their needs and aspirations, according to BAJI Executive Director Attorney Nana Gyamfi.
BAJI’s work includes three main areas: 1) “Cops and Cages” to address the criminalization of Black people, both migrant and African American, by examining the police to deportation pipeline; 2) “Community Care,” which includes helping Black migrants obtain asylum, as well as fighting not just for shelter and housing for immigrants, but fighting for housing for all; and, 3) “Community Power Building” to counter hate and attempts to put a wedge between African Americans and Black Migrants.
“To fight for the rights of Black migrants, we always make sure to do so with this Black diasporic lens, understanding that we’re not going to jump over African Americans into some white land of milk and honey,” stated Gyamfi.
According to BAJI, Black migrants face widespread anti-Black racism and abuse from the systems and actors they encounter as they move through the Americas in the hope of finding a safe environment with human rights protections. They face particular challenges reaching the United States, as U.S. immigration policies center on violent deterrence and the externalization of border regulation.
Even upon reaching the U.S., Black migrants suffer from racial discrimination as they are racially profiled, criminalized, and subject to detention and deportation at disproportionate rates. Despite the systemic racism and discrimination which Black individuals face in migration, their particular experiences are often disregarded and silenced.
BAJI plans to continue its online series designed to stop hate against Black migrants in 2025 “Abandonment to Abundance” addresses the issue of Black people having been abandoned, disinvested, tossed aside and tricked by government, African Americans in particular.
“Why? Because they feel abandoned. They’re scratching. They’re trying to make it. They’re trying to survive. They’ve now got two jobs and driving Uber. … And they’re being told that these people coming in now are getting something. Now, we know that they’re not. That is a lie,” emphasized Gyamfi. Said Gyamfi, Black migrants aren’t getting a thing, unlike some 20,000 Ukrainians resettled in Chicago, but who’s complaining?
In four months, 100,000 Ukrainians came to the U.S., were subsidized, and given work permits within a month, which often takes up to a year for Black migrants, according to Gyamfi.
“We don’t want anyone to be unhoused, but if we’re going to have a scenario in which we finally can find resources to cover folks, then absolutely find resources to cover all of our folks, in particular African Americans, because the capacity to be a country that people even want to come to is based on the 400 years of blood, sweat and tears of African Americans, so certainly they can’t be left behind,” she continued.
Part of BAJI’s conversation is how to use Black brilliance together to build power and ability to move from abandonment to abundance, not just relying on government, but on their own capacities, knowing what we have done in the U.S. and their home countries.
“To build together, we have everything we need with each other, as long as we’re with each other,” said Gyamfi.
