New Tools & Resources from our Partners

Dear Allies,

While it was by no means normal, we hope you all enjoyed a restful Thanksgiving holiday -- however you may have observed it. As we reflect on our role in building a more inclusive and equitable future into the new year, we must also challenge ourselves to consider and accept our history. We encourage you to take a moment to find out what indigneous land you are on by using this Native Land tool. Our offices in Washington, DC are on Piscataway and Nacotchtank land. 

This week, we are lifting up a new report on food insecurity in Latinx families from NILC and FRAC, and an organizational sign-on letter from Families USA that urges the Biden transition team to prioritize equitable health policies. We’re also sharing an invitation from the Center for Health Progress to a documentary viewing and discussion.

Today, NILC and FRAC published their new report Food Over Fear: Overcoming Barriers to Connect Latinx Immigrant Families to Federal Nutrition and Food Programs. This report sheds light on why many immigrant families are forgoing vital assistance from federal nutrition and food programs and lifts up recommendations aimed at ensuring that all families and individuals, regardless of immigration status, are nourished and healthy.

Our partners at Families USA have created an organizational sign-on letter to the transition team, urging them to prioritize health equity policies. You can sign on to the letter here and read the full text here.

The letter urges the new administration to prioritize health in its first year, and to ensure that health issues are central to the first 100 days agenda. Specifically, the letter urges the transition team and incoming administration to:

• Take bold and immediate action to address the COVID-19 pandemic;

• Pursue common-sense reforms that make health coverage and care affordable for all families in America;

• Bring down health care costs and transform our health care system by ending health industry abuses and prioritizing high-quality, consumer-centered health care; and,

• End racial injustice in health and health care, and ensure all individuals and families have equal opportunity to live a healthy life, free from health disparities and barriers to care because of who they are, where they live, what language they speak, or how they identify.

The deadline to sign is close of business on December 8th. Please reach out to Melissa Burroughs ([email protected]) with any questions. 

For centuries, US laws and policies have neglected, exploited, and attacked immigrants. Then, the pandemic swept the country, accelerating and magnifying every irreparable harm. Although corporations wouldn’t survive without immigrant workers, and communities wouldn’t thrive without the ideas and cultural influence of immigrant families, our government enabled the spread of the virus, excluded immigrants from relief, and made our essential workers, sacrificial workers.

The Essentials is a 22 minute long film that lifts up the voices of our friends and neighbors from around the world who are facing great barriers to survival, but who fight on nonetheless. Their stories expose the true cost of a global pandemic shouldered by immigrant communities, while also revealing the immense resilience and resistance that will power the coming revolution. The film will be released on YouTube at 10am MT on December 10, and you're invited to watch and share! Center for Health Progress' Coalition for Immigrant Health is also hosting a viewing and discussion on December 14 from 11am-12pm MT and you're invited to join. Please register to get call-in information.

• New York Times – Compelling story profiles several women who faced the choice between care for serious pregnancy complications and concerns about the consequences of public charge.

• Washington Post – New study finds significant concerns about taking a new COVID-19 vaccine among Black and Latinx folks, with Latinx respondents citing concerns about government programs.

• Baltimore Sun – PIF partner Casa de Maryland is quoted on the impact of COVID-19 on immigrant families.

In Solidarity,

Eddie Carmona & Renato Rocha, on behalf of the PIF Team

Visit us at https://protectingimmigrantfamilies.org/