The U.S. immigration system is deeply complex – hard to understand, and even harder to navigate. For too long, anti-immigrant groups have exploited this complexity, flooding social platforms with disinformation intended to radicalize public opinion and normalize extremist immigration policies.
At the National Immigration Law Center, we view social media as a powerful tool: to help people better understand our laws and policies, to empower community members with actionable resources, and to shape public discourse to build a more just system.
Donald Trump’s reelection marked a critical inflection point, both nationally and for NILC’s digital strategy. We anticipated a surge in public attention to immigration, heightened fear within immigrant communities, and difficulty sustaining people’s attention and support amidst a dizzyingly crowded political landscape.
We knew we had to meet the moment – with an approach that would allow us to be nimble in taking on immediate threats without sacrificing our long-term goals. We decided to invest in scaling and evolving our Instagram channel, where we saw the most potential for impact.
We had three core objectives:
Deliver timely, accessible, and multilingual resources to impacted communities;
Help audiences understand fast-moving political developments and their real-life implications;
Mobilize a broader base to join the fight for immigrant rights.
Our strategy was to create a dynamic, audience-first Instagram presence. We organized our feed into audience goals, ensuring regular engagement through diverse entry points that would both keep our existing supporters interested and bring new people to our channel.
Content to Empower:
We made the strategic call to start producing Know Your Rights (KYR) content early, without waiting to know the election results. On the eve of the election, we posted “Know Your Rights: Immigrants’ Rights Under the U.S. Constitution – No Matter Who Is President” – a grounding, empowering resource that stood out among a sea of political analysis on people’s feeds. The day after the election, we released a Spanish-language version. This established a steady cadence of KYR content that was both responsive to unfolding news and proactive in preparing communities for what might come.
Our KYR materials were designed to inform and also to mobilize. We centered impacted communities, while positioning this content to invite engagement from a broader set of people. By threading the needle that community empowerment is all our roles, we gave our audiences something to do and share, at critical moments when fear or despair could have led to disengagement.
Content to Build Connection:
To reach new and broad audiences, we had to make it clear that immigration policy could have a direct impact on people’s lives, even if they weren't immigrants themselves. We sought opportunities to insert NILC’s perspective into timely topics – even if they appeared unrelated to immigration – and we invested in paid strategies to reach people who fell outside of our typical Instagram audience.
As public anger grew over DOGE government cuts, we shared bold messages that situated workers and immigrants in solidarity while billionaires and the ultra-rich profited (Example). We created educational content that highlighted the devastating impact that mass deportations would have across the economy (Example). This messaging resonated deeply with our audience and naturally segued into our opposition of the so-called, “One Big Beautiful Bill” which gutted social services to supercharge ICE (Example).
Building on organic success, we launched NILC’s first creator campaign. From April-July, we partnered with nine different creators on Instagram, strategically working with people from diverse niches, like law, news, and food accounts, and finding unique ways for them to connect their focus to immigration. By leaning into what was most authentic to the creator, we centered their audiences and found ways to make immigration feel more relevant to them by starting the conversation from their own interests.
Content to Deepen Understanding:
As our audience and reach grew, we saw the need for storytelling that helped people see a bigger picture and envision a better future. We partnered with acclaimed artist Molly Crabapple to create an illustrated video that wove together often-ignored history and shone a light on why immigration has remained such a divisive issue for so long. Because this video was longer than ideal for Instagram, we created a multi-faceted distribution plan to support its performance on the platform.
Our strategy yielded unprecedented engagement, surpassing both our goals and expectations.
Platform Growth:
Know Your Rights:
Creator Campaign:
Illustrated Video:
