Trans Queer Pueblo, formed in 2016 as a merger between Arcoiris Liberation Team and the Arizona Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project, is a grassroots group working for the liberation of trans/queer migrant communities in Phoenix, both in side and outside of detention walls.
Trans Queer Pueblo, formed in 2016 as a merger between Arcoiris Liberation Team and the Arizona Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project, is a grassroots group working for the liberation of trans/queer migrant communities in Phoenix, both in side and outside of detention walls. Their key programs fall in four areas: Economic Justice, which builds the economic resilience of formerly detained people; Community Defense, which organizes and builds leadership of trans women; Health Justice, which facilitates access to primary care services and builds leadership of health promoters; and Family Acceptance, which supports and organizes family members of LGBTQ immigrants to engage in migrant justice work. They have organized successful case-by-case advocacy campaigns to free LGBTQ immigrants from detention. They also contributed to winning access to gender-affirming and migration-affirming municipal IDs through participation in the OnePhoenixID campaign and effectively mobilizing immigrant parents to speak out at school and community forums throughout the city.
Trans Queer Pueblo, formed in 2016 as a merger between Arcoiris Liberation Team and the Arizona Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project, is a grassroots group working for the liberation of trans/queer migrant communities in Phoenix, both in side and outside of detention walls.
Trans Queer Pueblo, formed in 2016 as a merger between Arcoiris Liberation Team and the Arizona Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project, is a grassroots group working for the liberation of trans/queer migrant communities in Phoenix, both in side and outside of detention walls. Their key programs fall in four areas: Economic Justice, which builds the economic resilience of formerly detained people; Community Defense, which organizes and builds leadership of trans women; Health Justice, which facilitates access to primary care services and builds leadership of health promoters; and Family Acceptance, which supports and organizes family members of LGBTQ immigrants to engage in migrant justice work. They have organized successful case-by-case advocacy campaigns to free LGBTQ immigrants from detention. They also contributed to winning access to gender-affirming and migration-affirming municipal IDs through participation in the OnePhoenixID campaign and effectively mobilizing immigrant parents to speak out at school and community forums throughout the city.
The #Not1More Deportation campaign was launched in 2013 to pursue just and humane immigration policies, starting with a stop to deportations.
The #Not1More Deportation campaign was launched in 2013 to pursue just and humane immigration policies, starting with a stop to deportations. In a context that saw a continued rise in state and national anti-immigrant policies along with diminishing possibilities for immigration reform, the campaign viewed criminalization as a central threat and fundamental to true legalization for undocumented people. Originally launched as part of NDLON, the campaign became independent to deepen the links between efforts against mass deportation, mass incarceration and state-sanctioned violence, and serve as a national vehicle for continued intersectional collaboration between community, labor, undocumented and LGBTQ organizations. By 2015 the campaign and its members became a crucial foundation for the forming of Mijente, a national grassroots and online organizing hub for Latinx and Chicanx in the United States. Significant successes include generating national momentum and changing the immigration debate to focus on the human cost of deportation. They catalyzed unlikely alliances across the country, supported the passage of dozens of local and state laws to undermine police-ICE collaboration, supported of campaigns to stop the deportations of hundreds of community members, and generated substantial pressure toward the legal, political and moral arguments that moved the President to announce executive action in November 2014. Over the past year, they significantly increased their collaboration and support of LGBTQ groups and issues, with SONG, Familia and the Transgender Law Center joining their campaign leadership. Last year, they co-hosted the “Queering Immigration Regional Kinship and Strategy Meeting” with SONG in Atlanta to bring people together to strategize organizing against immigration enforcement and detention policies in the South. They also organized a retreat for trans latina women organizers with TLC and Familia and a strategy session for the Not1More LGBTQ Deportation campaign.
Trans Queer Pueblo is a base-building racial and gender justice organization that is collectively governed by a growing membership of 300+ trans and queer undocumented and documented migrants and people of color in Phoenix who organize to transform our city toward fellowship, family, community autonomy, self-determination and liberation.
Photo credit: Diego Nacho
We are an autonomous LGBTQ+ migrant community of color who works wherever we find our people, creating cycles of mutual support that cultivate leadership to generate the community power that will liberate our bodies and minds from systems of oppression toward justice for all people. Our projects are focused on creating health justice and autonomy including a free clinic, building the power of migrant mothers through theater and literature, ending the criminalization and incarceration of LGBTQ+ people of color through community-run legal clinics and support of LGBTQ+ detainees throughout Arizona, reclaiming our own stories through art and media, inserting our voices into politics and public life through creative and strategic direct actions and campaigns like #NoJusticeNoPride and #EndManifestationLaw and building local queer and trans economies by creating cooperatives and businesses run by TQPOC. We combine service providing and community organizing to create autonomous community power to transform our city.
