As North Carolinians and as Jews, we are committed to welcoming all who seek the same promise of safety and prosperity that first drew many of our own ancestors to this land. 

One of our core guiding principles at CJJ is V’ahavta L’reacha Kamocha (love your neighbor as yourself). Living into this value compels us to advocate for immigrant and refugee justice, because every person, no matter what we look like or where we come from, deserves to live with freedom, safety, and belonging. Here in North Carolina, we work with partners like Siembra NC, Carolina Migrant Network, FaithAction International, El Vínculo Hispano / The Hispanic Liaison, CIMA, and HIAS, both locally and nationally. 

*** If you're looking for ICE watch trainings or additional ways to plug into the ongoing community response to the immigration enforcement crackdown in North Carolina, please check in with Defend and Recruit (a project of Siembra NC) or your local immigrants' rights organization. *** 

In response to Operation Charlotte's Web - the incursion of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents into our state, who frequently use racial profiling to unlawfully detain members of our communities, while creating panic, chaos and fear in our schools, shopping centers and neighborhoods - CJJ is strengthening our ties with our statewide and local immigrant rights partners and launching the Immigrant Rights Working Group. 

If you're interested in learning more about the work of the Immigrant Rights Working Group, please contact Lisa Forehand, CJJ Statewide Immigrant Rights Coordinator at [email protected]. 

We are proud of our community members who help lead the Refugee Resettlement & Immigrant Justice Initiative at Judea Reform (JRC) in the Triangle. You can join Judea Reform's Refugee Resettlement and Immigrant Justice Team Meeting on the first Wednesday of each month at 7pm by sending an email to [email protected] to get involved with this local work. 

Many of those in our movement are Jewish people whose ancestors faced conditions disturbingly similar to what we are seeing today at the border and in detention centers around the country. We know from our own history what happens when a government targets, dehumanizes, and strips an entire group of people of their civil and human rights. We will never let anything like the Nazi Holocaust happen again.

- Former CJJ Community Organizer Brandon Mond and
Roxana Bendezú, Executive Director of Migrant Roots Media,
in a co-authored op-ed published in the Burlington Times

Photograph by Anthony Crider