Dear friends,

When we first became an organization in 1998, our name Enlace, meaning link in Spanish, described who we were– a community of organizations across the U.S. and Mexico working together to achieve self determination for working people.

Over two decades the animo of the organization has remained the same, but our work has evolved to tackling criminalization of Black and brown communities through the Prison Industrial Complex. To fighting back against the colonizer’s forms of safety: prison, policing, detention, deportation, walls from the US to Mexico and Palestine.

Today, Enlace transforms into:

Freedom to Thrive
Decriminalize. Reparate. Liberate.

Our mission is to create a world where safety means investment in people & planet and to end the punishment-based criminal and immigration systems.

Freedom to Thrive will continue the work of Enlace, but with a deeper vision for a bolder future.

Through powerful intersectional Invest-Divest efforts, we have divested $4.8 billion from the prison industry and won historic reinvestment victories.

We have trained youth, womxn, and gender non-conforming leaders through our healing justice and political education programming.

Our Enlace Network is now the Freedom to Thrive Network. We will continue bringing together dozens of organizations committed to fighting at the intersection of immigration and criminal systems. Organizations committed to building Black & brown unity, Invest-Divest campaigns, and healing justice.

Our network is coming together to address anti blackness, transfobia, and misogyny. Together we will heal each other from the pain the state has caused us, and the pain we have caused each other. We will redefine safety as investment in people and the planet.

In 2019, with your support, we will continue our work to end the punishment-based criminal and immigration systems, under our new name Freedom to Thrive. We will unveil new strategies and updated programs. Our commitment to you is to continually innovate, walk in our values, and fight for the freedom of us all to thrive.

To all of you who have walked with us, whether it has been for the last 20 years or the last 2, thank you. We count on you to build this dream. Our time is now.

Today we ask you to join us again. Make a contribution, or join us as a monthly sustainer here.

In power,

Daniel Carrillo, and the Freedom to Thrive team