Nicolas M. Hernandez

Justice Seeker of the Year Award:
Nicolas M. Hernandez

Nicolas M. Hernandez serves as the current president of the North Texas Dream Team, a local grassroots advocacy and civic engagement nonprofit, and is earning his graduate degree in Public Administration & Leadership with a concentration in Non profit Management at the University of North Texas in Dallas. He is the Texas Statewide Organizer for RAICES and is based out of Dallas, Texas.

Nick has had experience coordinating events/presentations such as Know Your Rights, Immigration 101, An Immigrant's Journey, and more. He organized and led one of the first deportation defense campaigns in 2008. Nick has had the opportunity to assist and inform unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in detention centers in El Paso, and was recently at the US/Mexico border town of Tijuana to assist in giving humanitarian aid to the influx of migrants who were a part of several caravan groups fleeing Central America due to organized crime.

He is a member of several partnerships and coalitions throughout the DFW Metroplex, including the North Texas Immigration Education Table, the North Texas Immigration Coalition, the City of Dallas Welcoming Communities and Immigrant Affairs Task Force, and the Force for Immigrants Rights and Empowerment (F.I.R.E.), in which he chairs the Rapid Response Hotline that alerts the community of ICE raids and DHS operations.

Being a product of migration himself -- his mother is from Honduras and his father is from Mexico -- he is reminded of his rich cultural roots, the sacrifice and bloodshed of his people, and the constant struggle, paranoia and fear that come with being a minority in the United States, which motivates him to try and make this world a safer place for all.

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