Boston is offering immigrants—including people in the country illegally—$575 to complete a city-sponsored course in community organizing and advocacy.
The eligibility language on Boston’s own website is explicit:
“Interested applicants are encouraged to apply regardless of their immigration status.”
Run through Mayor Michelle Wu’s Office for Immigrant Advancement, Immigrants Lead Boston teaches participants how to organize their communities, engage government officials and advocate for change. Its fall 2026 course runs from September 21 through December 5.
Boston calls the $575 completion payment a scholarship to make participation more accessible.
Participants must attend the sessions and complete outside civic activities. The city also promises introductions to key officials.
The published rules establish that undocumented immigrants can apply. They do not disclose how many have received payments.
The program’s political ambitions become clearer in a published profile of its approach, which describes teaching the “art of politics.”
Its power-analysis instruction includes:
“Networking with people in positions of power for community advancement.”
Other skills include building coalitions, mobilizing communities and using personal stories to influence politicians and city officials.
The profile also describes what earlier participants actually did. After the first cohort showed limited engagement with public meetings and officials, the program added assignments connecting participants with city departments and council representatives. Participants attended city meetings and drafted testimony on housing and access to services.
Boston has also worked to multiply the number of organizers emerging from the program.
In 2023, the city partnered with re:power to develop a “train the trainer” curriculum for 13 graduates. Alumni received additional instruction in organizing, meeting facilitation, public speaking and conflict management so they could train other immigrant leaders in additional languages.
Re:power, formerly Wellstone Action, describes its work as training and strategic support for the progressive movement. Its broader programs include developing political power through civic engagement and training elected officials.
One of its stated political principles is unmistakable:
“We must contest for power at all levels of government.”
Boston’s alumni page gives concrete examples of the advocacy participants wanted to pursue. Viera Andrea Ilse described helping neighbors obtain driver’s licenses regardless of immigration status. Adelaida Carbajal Rosales wanted to expand her work with City Life and organizations campaigning for rent control.
Those statements describe participants’ plans, rather than verified paid assignments. The re:power partnership also concerned the earlier alumni course; Boston names a different partner for 2026.
That partner is the Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition, or MIRA.
MIRA’s published advocacy priorities include separating state and local police, courts and correctional facilities from federal immigration enforcement. The group also advocates public funding for legal representation in deportation proceedings.
On its PROTECT Act page, MIRA celebrates its coalition’s work on legislation limiting state and local participation in civil immigration enforcement. The available program records do not establish whether Boston’s required civic activities include MIRA’s campaigns.
The money can extend beyond individual scholarships.
Boston says it launched Community Action Project grants in 2025, allowing organizations working with participants to request up to $10,000. Projects were supposed to finish by June 2026 and follow standards that include immigrant civic participation and involvement in government decision-making.
The city’s page does not identify the recipients or total awards.
Boston also issued a formal solicitation for a program administrator, numbered EV00017195. The public notice does not disclose MIRA’s contract value, and the records reviewed do not isolate the funding source for the $575 payments.
Boston’s offer combines paid organizing instruction with access to officials. Its public records should show exactly which activities qualify for payment—and where the money goes.
The natives ALWAYS stay true to their tribe no matter where they were born. This is the inherent problem with immigration when assimilation is not required as it used to be. People like this Mayor will always be true to her roots never to America.
No white men in the group? Racism?