Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP)
The Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP) envisions a world without forced migration, where no one is forced to give up their homeland and 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 Organizing, Base-Building, Strategic Communications, and Long- Term Viability and Sustainability. We are led by a directly impacted steering committee, and staff, and operate organizing networks in regions throughout the United States, while connecting to the fight for Black liberation in our home countries.
BLMP mobilizes our people through community-building, political education, creating access to direct services, and organizing across borders. We build power, community, and knowledge in the U.S. while challenging the role that the United States plays globally in creating the conditions that force us to leave our homes in the first place.
We envision a world without borders, rendering the word “immigrant” obsolete: a world where all Black people and our loved ones have housing, bodily autonomy, health, and the ability to move and travel freely, with dignity, free of criminalization, anti-Black racism, misogyny, and all forms of transphobia and homophobia.
Long-term Viability & Sustainability:
The purpose of the viability and sustainability department is to make the internal systems and processes of BLMP manageable and realistic for long term growth, while also creating and maintaining the structures, resources, and capacity that support radical movement.
Strategic Communications:
BLMP Strategic Communications department organizes internal and external communications strategies to dismantle harmful dominant narratives and uplift and elevate the narratives, legacies, and experiences of Black LGBTQIA+ migrants in order build Black Queer Migrant narrative power.
Organizing and Base Building:
BLMP engages over 200 community members across the United States and has developed active local/regional networks—centered in Oakland, CA; Minneapolis;and Houston.
We engage our members in shaping and informing national efforts to resist enforcement, detention and deportations through work within criminal justice/migrant rights movements.
BLMP PROGRAMS:
Deportation Defense:
BLMP directly engages with and supports detained community members, organizes campaigns for their release and helps to connect them with local support when they are released.
Malaika Network:
Malaika Network is an arm of BLMP’s Deportation Defense work. Malaika Network a national cohort of BLMP members who participate in extensive training on deportation defense and post-release support as well as play an active role in BLMP’s Deportation Defense work. Malaika Network fellows assist Black LGBTQIA+ migrants facing deportation and/or held in migrant prisons throughout the United States and develop strategies to close migrant prisons that harm our communities.
“Malaika” in many East African Languages (Amharic, Somali, Swahili, Tigrinya, etc) translates to “angel” in English.
Garifuna Organizing:
The Garifuna organizing work is made up of a committee of directly impacted Black queer and trans Garifuna migrants. This work involves establishing relationships and networks (particularly connections to partners who can provide safe housing for migrants), developing resources and referrals, organizing safety, de-escalation, and self-defense training to disrupt the cycles of violence Garifuna trans women experience.
Fierce Freedom School (FFS)
FFS is a political education and leadership development program by and for Black trans women and femmes, co-anchored by BLMP and Black Trans Circles (BTC), a program of the Transgender Law Center (TLC). This annual program brings together 10-15 community members for two months of study, dialogue and skills building through a Black trans-feminist lens.
Regional & National Membership:
BLMP supports and grows regional hubs in California, Texas, and Minnesota, with the goal of expanding our member-led hubs into more regions. Hubs play a critical role in breaking the isolation that Black LGBTQIA+ migrants and first generation migrants experience, engaging new members, mobilizing community members for campaigns and actions, and offering leadership development.
Border Butterfly Project:
Border Butterflies is a bi-national project anchored by the Black LGBTIA+ Migrant Project, Transgender Law Center, and Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, and includes other US and Mexican organizational partners. The project aims to support LGBTQ asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border with legal, humanitarian, and post-detention support and organizing.
