International Migrants Day Proclamation

AIDNW was so grateful and honored to be invited by Commissioner Maricres Castro with the City of Tacoma Commission on Immigrant & Refugee Affairs (CIRA) to be part of the city’s proclamation yesterday which affirmed December 18th as International Migrants Day. Commission members Iuliia Didkivska, Maurice Lekea and Thierry Ruboneka were also on hand from CIRA.

Maurice and Thierry of the Congolese community simultaneously represented the Tacoma Refugee Choir along with its director Woody. Dr Ijazulhaq Ismael Zada spoke in representation of the Tacoma Afghan Community. Iuliia Didkivska spoke in representation the Ukranian Community. The Nile Collective included speakers Tasneem Amer, Atong Miyar and Yarangel John.

Louisa Beal from the Board of Directors of AIDNW was on hand representing our organization along with on-the-ground volunteers Chris Chisholm and Malachi Cabera who stood alongside CIRA commissioners and the representatives from community organizations supporting immigrants in our community.

After Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards read the International Migrants Day Proclamation aloud, she introduced Commissioner Castro, who in turn introduced the partner organizations she invited to speak, and finally members of The Nile Collective who shared about the current situation in Sudan. “Escalating violence and new atrocities in Sudan have pushed the humanitarian crisis to unprecedented levels, with displacement now exceeding 11 million people amid reports of mass killings and systematic-sexual violence across multiple regions,” according to UN officials.

What the speakers shared is exactly why all the organizations present including AIDNW do their work welcoming and supporting immigrants in our community. International Migrants Day was created by the United Nations for this reason: to raise awareness of why migrants need support, and the City of Tacoma affirmed this day because it’s critical that our community supports immigrants who make up so much of our population.

In fact, at least 15% of Washington State residents are foreign born, according to the American Immigration Council, and other recent sources put the figure higher than that. The mayor and at least some of the speakers participating in the proclamation alluded to realities such as if it weren’t for immigrants in our state, the economy would be a fraction of its current strength. Can you imagine a day without migrants at work in the U.S.?

The United Nations background page on International Migrants Day states that “On 4 December 2000, the General Assembly, taking into account the large and increasing number of migrants in the world, proclaimed 18 December International Migrants Day…. On that day, in 1990, the Assembly adopted the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families…..

“In December 2018, the Intergovernmental Conference to Adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration in Marrakech adopted the Global Compact.  Grounded in values of state sovereignty, responsibility-sharing, non-discrimination, and human rights, it recognizes that a cooperative approach is needed to optimize the overall benefits of migration, while addressing its risks and challenges for individuals and communities in countries of origin, transit and destination.”

This year, the United Nations is focusing International Migrants Day “Towards Safer Migration” with its 2024 GCM Implementation Report which “introduces key recommendations on providing humanitarian assistance to migrants in distress and strengthening cooperation on missing migrants, including concrete proposals to prevent migrants from dying or going missing, enhance search and identification efforts, support affected families, provide justice, accountability and redress, collect data on migrant deaths and disappearances and share migration forecasting data to optimize humanitarian assistance.”

And its “recommendations are only effective through collective action. Time is running out, and lives must be saved now.”