Dear Friends,

While it’s been almost a decade since I left graduate school, I love this time of year when my newsfeed is brimming with graduation speeches. This year, the themes ranged from resilience to purpose to inequity, but these words in particular caught my attention: “Life is one big waitlist and we cannot afford to wait while we wait. We’re running out of time to be the person we already say that we are. If you’ve been waiting for a booming voice over a loudspeaker to tell you when’s the time to start being you, now’s the time to start being you.”

As I listened to all these speeches and processed their overarching themes, I realized they had inadvertently described all immigrants I know. Resilient, purposeful, bold, unafraid.

The immigration process in the United States is one of the most cumbersome waitlists in the world. For many, we don’t even offer a waitlist. I waited and waited for my green card. When it finally came, it was without a doubt the happiest day of my life. Now, I was allowed to call the United States home. Now, I could be me. Who was I going to be? Someone that stood with immigrants. Someone that advocated for immigrants. Someone that found solutions for immigrants.

June is Immigrant Heritage Month, a tradition started by Welcome.US to celebrate the diversity that makes our nation great. As the anti-immigrant rhetoric gets louder, we too need to get louder in our support of immigrants. So please join me in taking a pledge to stand with immigrants. I am excited to participate in this tradition throughout the month and we can’t do it without you.

Here are 3 easy ways you can extend your support:

1.) Join an event near you. https://www.iamanimmigrant.com/events/

2.) Show your support by updating your profile photo with an “I Stand With Immigrants” logo. You can find the logo generator at the bottom of this page: https://www.iamanimmigrant.com/

3.) Share your story with us. Statistics don’t tell stories. People do. Email us at [email protected]

Sincerely,

Maneesha Mukhi

Founder, BorderGab