AFN exists to build and sustain a peer network committed to inclusively expanding the economy, growing economic security, and creating widely shared prosperity. The chaos and harm created by current immigration enforcement undermine all of these goals—draining communities of workers, destabilizing local economies, and spreading fear that prevents people from fully participating in economic life.
This crisis affects all of us—both citizens and non-citizens—with those most vulnerable to racial profiling and targeted enforcement facing the greatest harm.
We stand with our staff, our members, their grantees, and everyone being harmed by the unlawful and brutal tactics of federal immigration agents.
We stand with immigrant families and communities who are being abruptly arrested and deported, whose efforts to follow the law are cruelly disregarded, and whose access to medicine, health care, and, in some cases, their lives has been denied.
We stand with naturalized and U.S.- born citizens and their families who are being unlawfully detained, arrested for unjustified reasons, denied basic legal rights, subjected to harassment and property loss, and, even, killed by ICE agents.
We stand with farmers, meat packers, restaurant owners, small businesses, child care providers, builders, factory workers, and all others whose work and livelihoods are disrupted, ultimately affecting the well-being of families and communities. Under any honest analysis of the economy, we need immigrant workers across a broad swath of industries.
The intentional chaos we are experiencing is making communities, neighborhoods, workplaces, and local economies less safe and our economy less secure for all of us. To change this, we all must act to ensure that it is not normalized and lend our voice in solidarity to proclaim that:
- American communities should not live under siege. Families should not live in fear.
- Workers should not be in distress because of their skin color, country of origin, language spoken, or religion.
- Parents should not worry about the safety of their schoolchildren because of a government force.
- Americans should be able to rely on the Constitution as the fundamental social contract and not be subject to enforcement actions that violate constitutional rights protected in the First, Second, Fourth, and Sixth Amendments.
- People who are in this country and contributing to the community and the economy deserve our support and should expect to be protected from arbitrary harms.
AFN’s work rests on the belief that an inclusive economy guarantees housing, healthcare, family care, debt-free college, dignified work, an income floor, an inheritance, and responsible financial services in intentionally inclusive ways. When this access is upheld for all members of a community, those who use fear and division lose their power, and local economies—and the people who drive them—can thrive.
As a national and place-based network, we all have a responsibility to act: supporting strategies that protect immigrant communities, ensure access to legal services, and sustain local economies. AFN will continue to engage and mobilize its members to provide immediate relief while building systems that enable everyone to participate, prosper and contribute—rooted in interdependence, authentic solidarity, and inclusive economic principles.
Rev. Cory Anderson, AFN Board Co-Chair
Camille Emeagwali, AFN Board Co-Chair
Joseph A. Antolín, AFN President and CEO
