Dignity Not Detention and California Values Act

In 2017 Donald Trump had just begun his first term as President. Immediately he began attacking America's immigrant population, separating parents from children, building a pointless wall at the US/Mexico border, and threatening communities everywhere. Human rights organizations in California pressured the state legislature to pass new laws to protect California's immigrant families and disrupt Trump's racist policies. Two pieces of legislation emerged, the California Values Act and the Dignity Not Detention Act, to push back against the worst excesses of Trump's war on immigrants.

Brave New Films created a series of short documentaries supporting the passage of these laws in collaboration with Freedom For Immigrants, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, and Human Rights Watch, among other human rights organizations. 

As Campaign Director, I managed external partnerships and messaging using the film series to organize screenings across California. We led a pressure campaign on state legislators, demanding they step up for immigrant families. Op-eds I placed in outlets like The Nation and the Sacramento Bee were later credited by our lobbyist partners in the state Capitol for convincing then-Governor Brown to sign these bills into law, adding a desperately needed layer of legal protection for immigrant families across California.