Advancing immigrant and refugee rights: Introduction to the special issue

Abstract

This introduction to the special issue Advancing Immigrant and Refugee Rights: Promoting Empowerment, Justice, Equity, and Liberation situates contemporary migration within a context of escalating global displacement, structural violence, and political backlash. It highlights the urgent need for community psychology to respond to these conditions through praxis that centers migrant voices, challenges exclusionary systems, protects human rights, and promotes social justice and migrant well-being. Drawing from empirical studies across diverse geographic and sociopolitical contexts, the special issue explores how culturally grounded, participatory, and community-based approaches affirm migrant dignity, expand access to opportunity, and foster community resilience. The articles collectively address the psychosocial impacts of hostile immigration policies, the significance of culturally responsive interventions, and the transformative potential of migrant-led advocacy. Through the interconnected themes of empowerment, social justice and equity, and liberation, this issue offers a roadmap for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers committed to co-creating systems rooted in dignity, inclusion, and collective thriving. It concludes with a call for community psychologists to reject neutrality and engage boldly, urgently, and collectively in scholarship and practice that advance migrant justice.