Joy is powerful fuel in the long and arduous fight for justice.
On Tuesday night, our community gathered at The City Winery in NYC with a collective question: what can we do to help? We offered some action steps, and the response has been overwhelming. Thank you to our JusticeAid family for continuing to show up and proclaim loudly and clearly that we are in this together!
In 2026, JusticeAid is raising money for the National Immigration Project. Everyone at the concert last night left with an even greater appreciation for this brilliant and nimble group of justice warriors. For those who couldn’t be with us, your generosity is needed more than ever.
The power of music to move and inspire us was on full display. PEDRITO MARTINEZ AND HIS BAND were explosive. The sound, the energy, and the charisma brought everyone to their feet! Guitarist SCOTT SHARRARD and trumpeter ADAM O’FARRILL blew us away while the soaring vocals of CLAUDIA ACUÑA and ALICIA OLATUJA brought the house down. JusticeAid Artist in Residence PAOLA MENDOZA made her debut appearance.
We also shared that a member of our JusticeAid family has been caged in ICE detention for months. He offered these words from behind those walls:
“Tonight there is an empty chair in my honor. That chair is more than a symbol of my absence. It represents the many people who are missing from rooms where their voices, their leadership and their humanity belong. It represents parents separated from their children. It represents people fighting deportation after building entire lives in this country. It represents those detained behind walls, waiting for decisions that will determine whether they will return home to their families, or be sent into uncertainty. It represents millions of people who live at the intersection of punishment, immigration, poverty, racism and exile.”
The fight against injustice matters to all of us. We are all related and connected, and the well being or destruction of our neighbors is what defines our own futures. Our hearts are full of gratitude, and our boots are on the ground, ready to keep pushing back against the cruelty and terror of unlawful and violent immigration action in this country.
With deep gratitude from all of us at JusticeAid.
