2018 began as a year of great challenges for our community. Yet we were able to accomplish a lot. In 2019, with the new Congress and new political landscape we helped create, we have an incredible opportunity to make our voices as powerful as ever for real change. We need your help to do that.
This year, we successfully carried out NIAC’s first-ever leadership transition – cementing our status as an institution for our community that will give us a voice for years to come. We won policy victories, held record-breaking fundraisers, and began setting up leadership councils across the country.
Thanks to your support, here is some of what NIAC and NIAC Action was able to accomplish in 2018:
Changing the political landscape
- Helped elect a new Congress through NIAC Action’s political work – endorsements, mobilizing volunteers, targeted ad campaigns and turning out Iranian Americans to the polls
- Helped flip the four largest Iranian-American Congressional districts in the country – defeating lawmakers who supported war and the ban and, in their place, sending four new champions of our community to serve in the U.S. Congress
- Endorsed and helped support two of the first Iranian-American women ever elected to state legislature
- Trained over 100 of the next generation of Iranian American advocates on how to organize and win campaigns at our DC and San Francisco organizing summits
Victories on the issues
- Secured an official statement from Congress that there is no authorization for the use of military force against Iran
- Organized a letter signed by over 100 organizations calling for Congressional hearings on the Muslim Ban to set the stage to increase the issuance of waivers and to repeal the
- Ended a new US Postal Service policy to block mail to Iran
- Worked with lawmakers to send a letter demanding Trump allow humanitarian trade with Iran is not blocked by sanctions
- Led the opposition that prevented H.R.392 from becoming law. This bill would have made it far more difficult for Iranians to obtain green cards
- Countered Trump’s Iran policy and efforts to co-opt the voices of Iranian Americans, including with a full-page ad in The LA Times
- Launched Iran Unfiltered newsletter, a weekly digest tracking Iran politics and society
- Released report endorsed by foreign policy thought leaders calling for Congress and 2020 Presidential Candidates to return the U.S. to the Iran deal. Shortly thereafter, Sen. Warren – a 2020 contender – voiced her support for returning to the JCPOA