Immigrant Movement Visioning Process (IMVP) is a left-of-center coalition that advocates for illegal immigrants by convening with leading migrant groups and discussing key issues. ¹

In June 2024, members of IMVP met in Phoenix, Arizona, to discuss their “resistance” plans should Donald Trump win the presidential election. Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, claimed that the group performed a four-hour exercise to plan for such a scenario. ²

Background

Immigrant Movement Visioning Process (IMVP) was launched in 2018 to gather leaders from the immigration expansion movement in the United States and plot a course for the future of the movement and to develop core demands. ³ It claims the United States is seeing “virulent anti-immigrant attacks” and a “rise in explicit white supremacy, white nationalism, and xenophobia.” Leaders “representative of the diversity” of the multiple different left-of-center immigration advocacy groups banded together to envision a political system for America that would grant citizenship and services to illegal immigrants and expand the general welfare structure of the country. ¹

IMVP rejects the “regressive and punitive immigration policy agenda” of its “opponents” and aims to create “lasting and transformative change.” It views itself as an evolved form of other similar convenings of immigration group leaders, because claims to be the first to “center impacted communities” and be “co-led by a majority of individuals” from immigrant-led organizations. “It is especially important that this process has centered groups that have not been traditionally included such as Black and Muslim, Arab, and South Asian (MASA) immigrant communities,” the IMVP writes. ¹

Activities

To address the issues and begin envisioning a new immigration system, the group’s “design team” worked to identify and invite 50 leaders from various immigration rights groups to join in on their discussions. These individuals convened over a fourteen-month period where they shared ideas and strategies for bolstering the movement to expand immigration. Of particular concern was the requirements to “shift power at local, state, and federal levels” to achieve their political end goals. ¹

The meetings included educational webinars and scenario-planning sessions. It also commissioned a “landscape analysis” from Macro Advisory Partners, which presented information on social, political, and environmental trends affecting migrants. ¹

In a section of its post-analysis white paper, the IMVP details that the risk scenarios taught them that “the opposition” has a “powerful race & class narrative that we’re not countering” and that it received “clarity” on what it is up against, namely the “dangers of totalitarian regime; White nationalists; Trump is a pawn & they’re ready for the next one.” ¹

By the end of the program, the coalition decided upon “five freedoms” to serve as their vision of the immigration rights movement: “freedom to thrive, freedom to stay, freedom to move, freedom to work, freedom to transform.” ⁴

As to the future of the movement, IMVP says it has made its documents freely available to the public to “encourage,” “energize, deepen and enrich” individual activists and activist organizations. It describes its resources as “open-source materials to inspire individuals in our communities and indeed across America with an articulation of what justice for immigrants and communities as a whole would look like.” ³

In June 2024, members of IMVP met in Phoenix, Arizona, to discuss “resistance” plans should former President Donald Trump win the presidential election. Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, claimed that the group performed a four-hour exercise to plan for such a scenario. ²

Participants

As a coalition, the Immigrant Movement Visioning Process is comprised of individuals from left-of-center immigration-expansion groups. The initial team that organized the coalition was comprised of Helen Kim and Monica Regan, and grew out of a meeting of the Defend our Dreams Campaign, an initiative to support the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program of the Obama administration. ^{5 6}

The design committee, chosen by the organizing consultants, selected the 46 participants from 40 organizations based off a pre-established criterion. The participants had to fall under six categories: “Committed to centering directly impacted leadership (undocumented experiences, women, queer/trans, people of color, poor, Black); serve diverse communities (including MASA, API, Black, regional diversity, asylum/refugees); apply various approaches to win, including organizing, legal, policy, communications, political and electoral; committed to building long-term vision, not only interest in short-term fights; strategic thinkers willing to take off org hats and think w/ movement wide perspective; and willing to engage in transformational process, courageous conversations.” ⁵

1. “About.” Immigrant Movement Visioning Process. Accessed June 29, 2024. https://www.imvp.org/about/.
2. Savage, Charlie; Epstein, Reid J.; Haberman, Maggie; and Swan, Jonathan. “The Resistance to a New Trump Administration Has Already Started.” The New York Times, June 16, 2024. Accessed June 30, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/16/us/politics/trump-2025-democratic-resistance.html.
3. “Frequently Asked Questions.” Immigrant Movement Visioning Process. Accessed June 29, 2024. https://www.imvp.org/faqs/.
4. “Vision.” Immigrant Movement Visioning Process. Accessed June 29, 2024. https://www.imvp.org/vision/.
5. “Participants” Immigration Movement Visioning Process. Accessed June 30, 2024. https://www.imvp.org/participants/.
6. “Beyond Sanctuary: How Colleges and Universities Can Support Their DACAmented and Undocumented Students.” Center for American Progress (CAP), October 19, 2017. Accessed June 30, 2024. https://www.americanprogress.org/events/beyond-sanctuary-how-colleges-and-universities-can-support-their-dacamented-and-undocumented-students/.