Fiscally Sponsored Organization
Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP)
BLMP envisions a world where no one is forced to give up their homeland, where all Black LGBTQIA+ people are free and liberated. We build and center the power of Black LGBTQIA+ migrants to ensure the liberation of all Black people through community-building, political education, creating access to direct services, and organizing across borders. BLMP is an independent organization that is fiscally sponsored by Transgender Law Center.
Led by a directly impacted steering committee and staff and housed at the Transgender Law Center and, we build power, community, and knowledge in the U.S., while challenging the role the U.S. plays globally in creating the conditions that force us to leave our homes.
BLMP is providing cash assistance to Black LGBTQ+ migrants and first generation people dealing with the impact of COVID-19. Donate via the form to the right. For questions about donating to BLMP, please email tribe@BLMP.org.
September 24, 2021 – BLMP Del Rio Crisis Statement:
The violence that the U.S. government is enacting on Haitian migrants in Del Rio is horrifying. Border patrol agents on horseback chasing vulnerable Black people echoes the evils of slavery. There has never been a time in which the U.S. government has not been intentionally brutalizing Black people, either within these borders or elsewhere across the globe.
The images coming out of Del Rio are also highly reminiscent of George H.W. Bush-era detention of thousands of Haitians at Guantanamo Bay, and the pain of these images and experiences connect us through the generations. We must also remember all the ways the U.S. government has and continues to exploit and destabilize Haiti, forcing many to flee.
As we see all of this and more, we give space for the complex identities of those at Del Rio, including those who ICE deported, who were detained, granted parole, and forced across the border to Mexico. We uplift our LGBTQIA+ kin in those numbers. We give space to all the complex identities and realities that they have.
There is a world possible where our people are safe within the borders we are from, and one where we can migrate freely without harm. To get there, we must work to dismantle all systems of oppression, fight the anti-Black U.S. imperialist machine, and support
Black migrants right now.
BLMP Programs
National Organizing: BLMP shapes and informs national efforts to resist enforcement, detention and deportations through work within criminal justice/immigrant rights movements.
Local Networks: BLMP engages hundreds of community members across the U.S., and has developed active local/regional networks—centered in Oakland, CA; New York City; the Upper Midwest (Twin Cities, Chicago, Detroit); Washington DC/DMV, and the South.
Deportation Defense: We directly engage with and support detained community members, organizing campaigns for their release and helping to connect them with local support when they are released.
Research: BLMP is transforming narratives through the inaugural Queer Black Migrant Survey, which is collecting qualitative and quantitative data on our community’s experiences.
Staff and Consultants
Aneiry Simonnaeh
Garifuna Committee Organizer
Deborah A
National Organizer
Jade Daniels
Communications Manager
Natt Offiah
Southern Regional Organizer Consultant
Ola Osaze
Director
Oluchi Omeoga
Senior National Organizer
Rose Berry
Research Project Lead
Tiara Gendi
Fierce Freedom School Co-Coordinator
Steering Committee
Get involved with BLMP
In The News
LGBTQ Legal Rights Organizations Move to Protect California’s Trans-Inclusive Incarceration Policy
Lambda Legal, the Transgender Law Center (TLC), and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California (ACLU SoCal) filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit filed by anti-transgender activists against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) challenging SB132, the groundbreaking law protecting transgender people incarcerated in the state of California.
Families Sue Alabama Over Felony Ban on Gender-Affirming Care for Transgender Adolescents
Two Alabama families filed a lawsuit in federal court today challenging a recently passed law that criminalizes medical professionals who provide care to transgender adolescents with up to 10 years in prison. The families say being denied medically necessary care will be devastating for the mental and physical health of their adolescent children. The lawsuit alleges that the new Alabama law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Civil Rights Groups to Challenge Alabama Ban on Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Alabama, Lambda Legal, Transgender Law Center, and Cooley LLP announced today plans to file a legal challenge to proposed legislation in Alabama that would criminalize medical professionals who provide gender-affirming care to transgender adolescents with up to 10 years in prison.
