Under Trump, as Election Approaches, Almost 235,000 Fewer New Citizens Will be Sworn in This Fiscal Year
[Excerpt]
Margarita Juarez, originally from Mexico, became a U.S. citizen last year — and brought about a dozen family members and friends to her ceremony. Her celebrators even included her pastor and a volunteer with Dallas Area Interfaith, a nonpartisan group that pushes citizenship campaigns.
“It is so sad that people can’t participate in a ceremony that is so beautiful,” Juarez said of the pandemic restrictions on ceremonies.
She will vote for the first time Nov. 3. She says she is letting her faith in God assist with her election decision.
[Photo Credit: Ryan Michalesko/Dallas Morning News]
Under Trump, As Election Approaches, Almost 235,000 Fewer New Citizens Will Be Sworn In This Fiscal Year, Dallas Morning News [pdf]
Dallas Morning News Reporter Highlights COVID-19 Relief Effort
Dallas Morning News reporter, Dianne Solis, highlights her experience with Dallas Area Interfaith and DAI leader Fr. Jesus Belmontes of San Juan Diego Catholic Church.
SVP Dallas Workshop: Engaging the Media During COVID-19, Dallas Morning News
DAI, IAF Raise Alarm on Impact of Executive Order on Undocumented Immigrants
Tuesday’s memo comes as the Census Bureau begins outreach to the nation’s hardest-to-count groups, including immigrants. If the government is seen as trying to disadvantage them, some might be less likely to respond to the survey, immigrant advocates said.
“This is an order designed to sow fear and mistrust between peoples and becomes a matter of life and death as the US battles a deadly pandemic,” said a statement from the Industrial Areas Foundation, a group that works with churches and organizers in the West and Southwest to educate and support minority communities.
....
Soco[rro] Perales, an organizer with Dallas Area Interfaith, said that organizers will continue to encourage immigrant families to cooperate with the Census.
“That information cannot be shared” with immigration authorities, she said. “Everybody still needs to be counted and it is still safe.”
[Photo Credit: Mandel Ngan, AFP / Getty Images]
Some in Texas Fear Trump Ban on Undocumented Immigrants in Census is Scare Tactic to Suppress Count, Washington Post
Trump Administration Seeks to Bar Undocumented Immigrants From a Portion of the 2020 Census, Washington Post [pdf]
New Trump Order Excluding Non-Citizens From Census Could Cost Texas a Seat in Congress, Dallas Morning News [pdf]
Statement on today's Executive Order, Industrial Areas Foundation
DAI Raises Alarm That Undocumented Immigrants are Self-Evicting
[Excerpt]
“When they want to ask for help from a nonprofit, and the staff only speaks English, they feel intimidated and don’t want to go on,” said Adriana Godines, a volunteer for Dallas Area Interfaith, a community group made up of religious congregations, schools and other nonprofits. “Even if I tell them that there will be no problem and they won’t ask for your Social Security, they prefer not to [ask for help].”
And even people who go to the justice of the peace courts, where eviction cases are heard, face similar hurdles.
“A lot of JP courts won’t have bilingual speakers,” said Lizbeth Parra-Davila, a housing fellow at the University of Texas School of Law. “Throughout Texas, that has been the case where I’ll call JP courts and they’ll say, ‘Yeah, we don’t have any Spanish speakers. We don’t have any Spanish interpreters.’”
Godines has seen homes with 12 people living together as people who self-evict move in with loved ones.
“It’s people of all ages. Kids, adults, sometimes senior citizens,” she said.
Godines has worked with families searching for rental assistance, and she said that funds are running low among nonprofit organizations that are allowed to serve undocumented immigrants.
“We want to do more, but we don’t have more resources,” Godines said. “But the little that we have in this community, we give it.”
Auxiliary Bishop Greg Kelly of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas explained that many priests and churchgoers have pooled together resources to pay for rent and food for undocumented migrants. But he, too, worries how long such resources will last.
“I don’t think we know yet how serious this is or how long it will last. When the city assistance program opened, the help available was overwhelmed in the first couple of hours,” Kelly said. “It could be a very lengthy situation. There’s so much uncertainty.”
[Photo Credit: Pu Ying Huang, The Texas Tribune]
DAI Raises Alarm That Undocumented Immigrants are Self-Evicting, Texas Tribune [pdf]
DAI, Texas IAF Celebrates $350M Won in Local Relief, Launches GOTV Effort for Fall
Exceeding their turnout goal by 50%, more than 1,500 leaders from Texas IAF organizations assembled online and in (socially distanced) watch parties to launch a Get Out The Vote drive, pledging to deliver 200,000 voters this fall to support a nonpartisan agenda for change.
Declared the Rev. Dr. Rhenel Johnson, pastor of Abundant Life United Methodist Church and leader with TMO: "Here today are the prophets like Moses who are called to set the people free. Set them free from slave jobs, set them free from not having access to mental health for our adult and children, set them free from police brutality and set them free from inequality! The Texas IAF network is ready to take to the streets and sign up voters to our agenda of issues and March them to the polls starting October 19 for early voting through election day on November 3rd."
Bishops, clergy, lay leaders, and community leaders from 10 Texas IAF organizations ratified an agenda that includes COVID-19 recovery, workforce development, healthcare access, immigration, and police reform. Speakers included: Catholic Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller (Archdiocese of San Antonio), Auxiliary Bishop Gregory Kelly (Diocese of Dallas), Rabbi Alan Freedman (Temple Beth Shalom in Austin), Danielle Alan of Harvard University, Paul Osterman of MIT, Luke Bretherton of Duke University, Charles Sabel of the Economic Policy Institute, and Teresa Ghilarducci and Richard McGahey of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis.
Similar statewide “Sign Up-Take Charge/Get Out The Vote” campaigns by the Network of Texas IAF Organizations have netted over $2 Billion in infrastructure funding for colonias along the border, tens of millions for workforce development for living wage jobs, over $50 Million for public school parent training and staff development, expansion of CHIP and Medicaid at the state level, and living wage measures in cities, counties, and school districts across the state.
Over the past three months Texas IAF organizations have focused on COVID-19 recovery, leveraging over $250,000,000 in rental/utility assistance and $100,000,000 in workforce development at the city and county levels, in addition to statewide and local moratoriums for utility cutoffs and evictions.
“We've won hundreds of millions in immediate COVID-19 economic relief, our organizations are now focusing on longer term workforce and economy recovery strategies brought about by the pandemic,” said Rev. Minerva Camarena-Skeith, a leader with St. Michael’s Episcopal and Central Texas Interfaith. “This includes long-term training for in-demand living wage jobs, reducing underlying health care disparities, and education investments like internet connectivity for students from low-income communities to bridge the digital divide.”
Leaders pledged to identify 5,700 leaders in house meetings and small group gatherings this summer and prepare them to each deliver 36 voters to the polls this fall.
DAI, Catholic Bishop Worry About Undocumented in Latest Texas COVID Outbreak
As COVID-19 cases in North Texas rise again, Dallas Area Interfaith leaders and Catholic Auxiliary Bishop Gregory Kelly fight for relief for undocumented immigrants.
Says Bishop Kelly: "They don't have any access to any kind of support -- any kind of stimulus support -- and so they have to work..."
DAI, Texas IAF Orgs Fight for Spanish Language Access to COVID-19 Info
[Excerpts]
Because of language barriers, Texas risks leaving some of the state’s marginalized communities even more vulnerable to contracting the virus while making it more difficult to access resources needed to get through the pandemic....
Claudia Cruz, whose primary language is Spanish, said Dallas Area Interfaith— a coalition of Dallas religious congregations, schools and nonprofits — has been her main source of information since the COVID-19 pandemic began because “it’s the most accessible,” Cruz said.
“Our only source of information has been through DAI and through the people in our community,” Cruz said....
A few of Cruz’s friends and neighbors told Cruz they were too scared to even get tested for the virus because they didn’t have government IDs, Cruz said. It was Cruz who first explained to them that their parish IDs — alternate identification provided by Dallas Area Interfaith congregations for immigrants and others who have difficulty getting government ID cards — was valid for testing.
That’s information officials should be communicating to their constituents, said Josephine Lopez Paul, lead organizer for Dallas Area Interfaith.
“In the same way we’re seeing the virus disproportionately affect people of color, that same gap exists for quality information,” Lopez Paul said.
[Photo Credit: Eddie Gaspar, Texas Tribune]
More Than a Third of Texans Speak a Language Other Than English. That Means Key Coronavirus Updates Aren't Accessible to Them, Texas Tribune [pdf]
As Coronavirus Disproportionately Targets Latinos, DAI Organizes to Address Poverty & Vulnerability
[Excerpt]
On a balmy day at the St. Bernard of Clairvaux Catholic Church in East Dallas, parishioners working with the nonprofit Dallas Area Interfaith talked among themselves about problems they faced as they passed out food to a long line of needy people.
Rosa Garcia said she was already helping family cope with the deaths of two family members in Dallas when her husband found out two more relatives had died in Florida. “For immigrants, it is harder. We have to struggle three times harder,” Garcia said.
Nearby, a small woman named Cecilia with a white face mask set below bloodshot eyes took a break. She said she didn’t sleep much because rats and bugs have infested her apartment, and she must be on guard that they don’t bite her children at night.
Cecilia lives on a janitor’s wages. She asked that her surname not be published because she is undocumented and fears she’d lose her job. She can’t pay her rent and the landlord says it will be an extra $300 if she wants to change apartments....
[Photo Credit: Ben Torres, Special Contributor, Dallas Morning News]
On The Front Lines, Latinos Fight The Coronavirus, Poverty And Vulnerability As Contagion Rages Through Texas, Dallas Morning News [pdf]
DAI Fights for Worker Protections for Poultry Plant in Irving
[Excerpts]
...workers who labor shoulder to shoulder at the plant and others fear the contagion has spread to more people in the Dallas area. Sick workers who do not get themselves tested could spread the virus when they are out and about or when they return to the plant.
“The workers at these plants are essential workers, especially now,” said auxiliary Bishop Greg Kelly of the Dallas Catholic Diocese. “They help keep the food supply chain intact for all of us… They are particularly vulnerable because of the kind of work that they do and in greater need of protection at this time. Just as the state has done elsewhere in Texas, they should require testing of their employees for the safety of all."
....
Josephine Lopez-Paul, an organizer for Dallas Area Interfaith, said she is organizing a plan to assist those families. “It’s in our collective interest to protect these workers,” Lopez-Paul said. “The state also has a responsibility to these workers.”
[Photo Credit: Ryan Michalesko, Dallas Morning News]
Experts, Activists Want Virus Testing at Meat-Processing Plants to Prevent Community Spread, Dallas Morning News [pdf]
DAI, Church Support Food Workers after Covid-19 Outbreak in Irving Poultry Plant
[Excerpt]
At St. Luke’s Catholic Church in Irving, Rev. Ernesto Esqueda said the church will support the workers with food and other needs during the pandemic.
“We are all walking on the same path, and our close ties mean we help and will continue to help so that these persons don’t feel forgotten or abandoned,” Rev. Esqueda said. “As a church, we work for them and with them.”
The priest said the church is also working with the nonprofit Dallas Area Interfaith and government authorities to find help for workers and parishioners.
One church leader in the interfaith group, Cecilia Avalos, said many of the Brakebush workers are vulnerable Spanish-speaking immigrants, and she knew of a worker who quit when the plant wouldn’t allow the worker to self-quarantine after exposure to an infected worker.
“There is such an outcry among people,” Avalos said.
[Photo by Dianne Solis and Imelda Garcia]
40 Workers At Irving Poultry Plant Test Positive for Covid-19, The Dallas Morning News
40 Empleados de Planta Procesadora de Pollo Dan Positivo a COVID-19, Dallas Al Día
