‘Tenemos derechos’ and other public messaging welcomes immigrant Nebraskans

OMAHA — Drivers cruising through Fremont, Grand Island, Lexington and South Omaha will notice billboards aimed at telling Nebraska’s immigrant populations: All of us have rights and all of us belong.

The messages are part of a newly launched campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska. 

Billboards will be displayed through this year with messages in Arabic, English, Mandarin, Somali, Spanish and Vietnamese, the ACLU said. Radio ads are running on Fiesta 94.5 and Lobo 97.7. Staffers also have been handing out multilingual information on immigrant rights at community events.

The campaign, sparked by funding from the national ACLU, points people to a section of the local ACLU’s website for information regarding rights to housing, the workplace and interactions with police or immigration officials.

ACLU’s senior legal and policy counsel Rose Godinez said the goal is to ensure that immigrants in Nebraska feel welcomed and well informed.

“It is important that immigrant Nebraskans understand they are essential to the fabric of our communities and that their rights must be respected and defended,” Godinez said. “We will continue to make sure that all 140,000 immigrants who call Nebraska home truly feel at home and know that the ACLU of Nebraska is dedicated to ensuring they feel protected and respected.”

Immigrant rights are a major focus area for the Nebraska chapter of the ACLU. In recent years, the civil rights organization has investigated language accessibility in police agencies, pushed for more pandemic assistance for immigrants, published a report of case law affecting local immigrants and filed a lawsuit for access to Department of Homeland Security records on a Nebraska immigration raid.