Cities for DACA

In June 2020, DACA survived the Supreme Court by a single vote. Within weeks, a new federal memorandum moved to narrow the program anyway, and Cities for Action, a coalition of nearly two hundred U.S. mayors and county executives, needed the country to hear what its cities already knew: that DACA recipients hold up the places they live.

Reverb built the campaign. Leo named and branded it, directed the messaging, and designed the machinery around a simple conviction: the most persuasive voice on a city’s behalf is the person its residents elected. An op-ed program put mayors’ own arguments in their own cities’ papers. A video series let DACA recipients tell their stories at first hand, in their own words. A policymaker toolkit gave local governments language, facts, and actions they could take without waiting for permission from anyone.

Between May 2020 and April 2021, mayors and civic leaders published in seven markets across the country: Chicago, Denver, Houston, Salt Lake City, Cambridge, Washington, and San José. The campaign page remains live today, and its materials were still being updated and used years later: the frame set in 2020 is the frame the coalition still works from. The campaign outlived its moment.

The program itself was argued into shape a decade earlier: Deferred Action, the Senate gallery in 2010 and the White House table in 2012.