ACLU Launches Six-Figure Ad Campaign to Educate Immigrant Communities on Their Rights When Dealing with ICE

WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union is launching today a six-figure advertising buy to ensure immigrant communities know their legal rights in interactions with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The organization is investing to reach vulnerable communities with “We Have Rights,” a campaign launched with Brooklyn Defender Services last month which consists of four videos narrated in seven languages by celebrities.

The Spanish and English ads will be featured on Radio Campesina, part of the Cesar Chavez Foundation and a trusted news source amongst farm workers and the undocumented community, and online through Facebook, Pandora, and YouTube. The digital ads will run in Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The ACLU’s sophisticated targeting will ensure that the ads reach impacted communities in their native language, by using tactics such as identifying people browsing Facebook with the language set to Spanish in key areas.

“We’ve been working with partner organizations and community groups to make sure we reach the people that need this information the most. This investment in an advertising campaign will take our reach one step further. We want to be a click or listen away for someone to know their rights and be empowered against Trump’s deportation force,” said Natalie Montelongo, ACLU campaign strategist.

The ads will be available in key localities like Kern County in California’s Central Valley that have high densities of immigrant communities and have suffered through a recent uptick in ICE raids. The ads will include the phone number to volunteer-led rapid response networks hosted by the ACLU’s California affiliates to flag ICE raids and help immigrants get legal representation and challenge detentions and deportations.

Available in English, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Haitian Creole and Urdu, the videos are based on true stories and provide practical tips for how to safely defend the legal and human rights of immigrants during four common encounters with ICE: when ICE is at the door, when ICE is inside homes, when ICE stops people in the street, and when ICE arrests immigrants.

The Trump administration has increased ICE enforcement and removal operations in 2017 by 30 percent across the country, and included many people who previously were not likely to be targeted by ICE, such as people married to American citizens, young people and people who have never been convicted of a crime.

The series was created with input from immigrant communities and legal experts and is voiced by an all-star cast of influencers and activists, including Jesse Williams (English), Diane Guerrero (Spanish), Kumail Nanjiani (Urdu), Linda Sarsour (Arabic), Edwidge Danticat (Haitian Creole), Katya Lee (Russian), and Xiren Wang (Mandarin).

The videos are accessible at wehaverights.us andaclu.org/we-have-rights.