HURRICANE

The Human Rights Immigrant Community Action Network

"Documentation begins with dialogue."

"Dialogue means sharing our stories, our dreams and our struggles to decide the justice we want."

HURRICANE offers communities the tools to begin genuine dialogue and engage community members and leaders in a community-based process to document abuses as an organizing strategy.

• The Seven Steps | Los Siete Pasos
• Popular education curriculum on abuse documentation (coming soon!)
• Sample Questionnaire | Cuestionario 
• Martus: a human rights database to document abuses

The 100 Stories Project is the heart of NNIRR’s HURRICANE initiative, putting a human face to the tragic consequences of the U.S. government’s enforcement policies. With the 100 Stories Project, community members, families, advocates, organizers and allies tell their stories, gather community testimonies and report human rights abuses to organize demands for redress and justice. 

HURRICANE is NNIRR's human rights abuse documentation initiative, which aims to:

1. Build leadership & capacity in immigrant communities and in our movement to systematically track, document and seek redress for human rights abuses and rights violations committed against members of our communities. 
2. Expose patterns of abuses and support local organizing and advocacy for meaningful changes in policies and practices.
3. Strengthen relationships and build genuine alliances between diverse immigrant communities facing abuses and rights violations, and facilitate communication, solidarity actions, and collaboration. 
4. Support local community organizing "in the eye of the storm": we recognize the resilience and strength of local communities organizing in the midst of tumultuous circumstances and crises. Human rights documentation means organizing "in the eye of the storm" to sit, talk and listen to one another and figure out the changes we want and how we will get them.

TAKE ACTION: 

• Tell your story: report an abuse or rights violation using our online form here.
• Interview a community member, co-worker, or friend about a rights violation or abuse.
• Organize a HURRICANE or 100 Stories campaign in your community to gather testimonies and determine the changes you want.
• Click here to request a training on human rights documentation as a community organizing strategy.
• Download Martus, a human rights database, and report abuses with HURRICANE. Sign up for a Martus training here.

Groundbreaking Grassroots Human Rights Reports

Since 2007, HURRICANE has produced an annual human rights report highlighting the impacts of U.S. immigration enforcement policies on workers, communities, and families. By raising the voices of our communities, we organize for redress and accountability while continuing to advocate for changes in immigration policies that are fair and just and do not compromise or undermine human rights. 

Over-Raided, Under Siege: U.S. Immigration Laws & Enforcement Destroy the Rights of Immigrants (January 2008) affirmed that the U.S. DHS subjects immigrant and refugee communities "to a deliberate and distinct form of 'collective punishment,' resulting in widespread violations of basic constitutional and human rights."

Guilty by Immigration Status (September 2009) revealed that "immigration policing- using immigration status to implement repressive policies to detain persons- is now pervasive as a draconian form of social, economic and political control from the womb to the workplace." In addition, the report noted the dramatic expansion and consolidation of an "immigration control regime," that violates the human rights of immigrants, including legal permanent residents and U.S. citizens at the U.S.-Mexico border and in the U.S. interior. (pp i)

Injustice for All: The Rise of the U.S. Immigration Policing Regime (December 2010) found that the U.S. has built a brutal system of immigration control and policing that criminalizes immigration status, normalizes the forcible separation of families, destabilizes communities and workplaces, and fuels widespread civil rights violations. (pp iii)