The Princeton Immigrant Trust Resolution

For the last two months, activists with Resistencia en Acción (including myself) have urged Princeton’s Mayor and Council to pass a municipal resolution in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act (ITA), a piece of pro-migrant legislation introduced last September in the New Jersey state legislature but currently stalled there. About a dozen New Jersey municipalities have adopted municipal resolutions urging passage of the ITA, and efforts are under way to persuade other municipalities to pass it as well.

Resistencia activist Farahnaz Shemeem at the mic, with organizer Arlene Flores giving me side eye

After two solid months of demonstrations in favor of the resolution (June and July), and three packed Town Council meetings dedicated to the issue (June 23, July 14, July 28), Princeton’s Council has at last put a version of the resolution on its agenda for today, August 11th, which it’s reportedly likely to pass. Passage of the resolution would be a victory for Resistencia, a victory for migrant justice, and a victory for activism generally–modest victories, to sure, but victories nonetheless. 

In the next few posts, I’d like to offer up some lessons learned, not just from this particular campaign, but from my activism with Resistencia more generally. In some ways, I feel reluctant to bloviate on “lessons learned” after a mere ten months’ involvement: it seems presumptuous for a bit player (and I am a bit player) to claim to know anything worth passing on. Beyond that, I can guarantee that at least some of what I have to say will offend someone, something that I am (believe it or not) somewhat reluctant to do.  

That said, the ten months I’ve spent with Resistencia have involved so steep a learning curve that it seems a shame to leave the lessons learned unsaid.  What strikes me on reflection is how much there is to say, regardless of what I can really be said to know. My hope is to turn these posts into an ongoing series that connects my hyper-local experiences with Resistencia with the broader campaign for migrant justice. More ambitiously, my hope is to bridge some gaps between activism, conventional politics, and academic political theory. What is it that activists can teach conventional politicians or political theorists? What is it that activists can learn from them? Among other questions. Stay tuned, and feel free to send me some questions of your own.