We've watched funding for services threatened and cut as we face increased attacks on our families and communities in the forms of hateful rhetoric and unconstitutional abuse by law enforcement agencies.

Despite this, we've continued deepening our roots in this state we call home. We've made time to celebrate our diverse cultures and our work to enhance immigrant lives.

But we couldn't have done it without your energy and your support.

This holiday season we're asking you to show your commitment to our coalition-building work with the gift of becoming a MIRC donor.

Please give $20 as a monthly sustainer to keep us going in 2026.

Now let's take a moment to look at some 2025 highlights, starting with a new video from this year's successful Maine Immigration Forum.

1. Food and Land access

2. Jobs and skill development

3. Rapid response to immigration enforcement 

4. Legislative advocacy wins

5. Comms developments

6. Interns and member re-engagement 

7. Response to federal rule changes

(Click the images to learn more.)

1. November marked the official start of our Cultural Food and Land Hub research program, funded by the Mellon Foundation and other partners, with the aim of expanding the production and distribution of food from multicultural operations. Learn more here.

Picture above: Members of the cohort with fresh computers in hand!

2. Our job development collab with Resilient Coders Software Engineering Bootcamp, IntWork, David Delmar Sentíes of Delmar Group, and the DECD began this summer and will provide Maine with a diverse cohort that's skilled-up to find work in the tech sector.

Thank you to the applicants who brought this project into reality.

Stay tuned for updates and future opportunities.

Photo above: Hundreds of Portland-area high school students protest over the detention of fellow students, including rising soccer star Joel. Click the picture to see him in action.

3. We helped launch a multilingual Maine Hotline and Resource Hub with partners across the state. In doing so, we trained and mobilized a volunteer base several hundred strong all across the state who are directing people to needed resources.

Additionally, we were able to secure funding for coalition members from ethnic-based community organizations to support ongoing work in their communities by those closest to the impacts of federal agencies and the local law enforcement who has been collaborating with them.

4. MIRC had a busy and successful season of legislative advocacy in the Capitol, including testifying on 26 bills. Not to mention an important win too fresh to have made it into the graphic above, the passage of LD 1971 limiting local and state cooperation with ICE.

Learn about some of the bills we tracked that are getting carried over into next session.

5. This year saw significant growth in MIRC's Communications program, including the hiring of a dedicated comms staff person who has been able to grow all of our existing social media accounts, and initiate new accounts on Bluesky and Threads.

MIRC has also added this monthly newsletter to its comms schedule as a way to highlight work of members and welcome in new supporters.

Additionally we've developed a new online action tool to generate petitions and letters to officials, exemplified by this public charge sign-on comment.

6. This year we had an amazing team of interns who helped us in policy research, advocacy and communication, including the creation of this legislative vocabulary guide.

Through the assistance of interns MIRC has also undertaken a massive membership re-engagement project to deepen relationships within the Coalition.

This includes the welcoming of several new member orgs and the creation of a new member map (still in progress).

7. Over the last several months, we've been weighing in on the barrage of federal rule changes coming out of the Trump administration.

We've provided technical comments on issues including: the implementation of new and increased fees for most asylum seeking and work permitting processes; regulations on commercial driver licenses; and process for establishing public charge criteria to determine citizenship eligibility.

We also participated in multiple advocacy days with our national partners on tax- and refugee-related policies — centering the stories of our membership — and spoke on these topics at numerous conferences and events across the state.

• We'll be stepping back into the state legislative arena in January to advance improvements in social services, civil liberties and a healthy democracy. (Tell us your priorities here.)

• We're launching a program to develop immigrant and refugee leadership in the climate justice movement. (Share your story here.)

• We'll be co-hosting a series of statewide community dinners to share stories from our state's immigrant communities. (Partnering with Community Plate.)

• We'll be educating our communities about important choices on the midterm ballot.

We hope to see you out there with us. Remember, we can't do this without you. Please consider becoming a monthly sustainer or making a one-time gifts to MIRC before the year ends.

Thank you so much,

Mufalo Chitam

MIRC Executive Director