Introduction
Agricultural Missions, Inc. (AMI) was formed in 1934 for the specific purposes of supporting rural peoples in their struggles to achieve justice, better lives, and healthier communities. AMI aims to educate its North American constituency and the general public on issues of importance to rural peoples in the United States and other countries. Each year, AMI hosts study sessions to provide education and information that affect the global rural community for action and advocacy on economic justice, food security, and the environment. AMI uses this opportunity to provide training for support on vital concerns to rural communities and peoples in general. The purpose of AMI’s 2019 Study Session was to contextualize the impact of racism, globalization, and climate change under the current humanitarian and immigration crisis. The main objective for the study session included developing practical solutions that encourage building strategies and engagement across borders. AMI proposed identifying issues that require a holistic approach, ultimately strengthening activists’ collective work and socio-political movements.
In light of the current humanitarian crisis, AMI decided to publish its session proceedings to inspire organizations to develop a shared understanding surrounding the impact of forced migration due to climate change, racism, and globalization in general. Climate justice includes accepting positions that require eliminating borders to support refugees, mitigate struggle, and respect cultural and racial differences. Usually, structural barriers help sustain a system afflicted with violence and inhumanity toward refugees. This paper discusses the problems inherent in immigration laws that prosecute victims of violence, persecution, and climate change. The latter phenomena lead to forced migration. In addition to identifying and analyzing the problems associated with the intersectionality of globalization, racism, climate change, and forced migration, it highlights some of the organizations on the front lines of the struggle and their efforts to solve those problems in both a just and humanitarian way. Some of these organizations are the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project and Movimiento Puente. The actions put forth by these organizations that are engaged in this critical struggle, seek to build a policy-relevant agenda and strategy to address the above issues. Ultimately, this paper encompasses dialogue from activists, researchers, academics, and nonprofit organizations seeking to create positive and lasting change in the intersection of race, globalization, climate change, and migration. The rest of the paper is discussed as follows: problems, approaches, and conclusion.