URGENT IMMIGRANT JUSTICE UPDATE!
/Last week, on January 2nd, C2C leadership and immigrant community members were stunned to witness Council Member Hannah Stone, an immigration attorney, introduce a draft ordinance to city council with the intention of suspending the Immigration Advisory Board indefinitely. It is difficult to describe the feelings of shattered hope from our immigrant constituents, especially when a bilingual immigration attorney is leading the effort to dismiss their leadership.
The Immigration Advisory Board was established by ordinance in a unanimous city council vote on December 2019. Since that time, the IAB has become the only City of Bellingham Board or Commission to provide language access to City residents participating in official governance processes. Interpretation in Spanish, Punjabi, and Russian is available at all public meetings of this Board only, with the agreement that additional languages can be requested for interpretation by community members who want to participate. Because of this access and the board’s intentionally democratic processes to prioritize equitable participation, the IAB is the only place where immigrants in Whatcom County can and do bring the issues that are impacting their lives.
In August 2022, immigrant community members and allies hand made and delivered thousands of origami butterflies to city hall in a gift which signified hope and willingness to move forward together toward equity in city governance. The mayor and city council rejected the gift and asked immigrants to take the butterflies down. Today, you can still see origami butterflies hanging all over Bellingham in businesses who support the effort to create a city funded Immigrant Resource Center.
DON’T LET THE CITY SHUT THIS BOARD DOWN!
Email city council and the mayor now and tell them that you value equitable participation for immigrant community members.
Immigrants are under attack at the border, shipped out like cattle to cities across the country, and being used as political pawns to fund wars overseas. This effort in Bellingham is a local ray of hope, led by immigrants, to provide dignity to their families using tax dollars they know they have paid into the City economy to fund an Immigrant Resource Center.
The task of creating an Immigrant Resource Center can only be successful when immigrants lead it using the Immigration Advisory Board and the democratically allowed Civic Process.
SPECIFIC WAYS YOU CAN HELP NOW
Attend the Immigration Advisory Board meeting on January 16th at 6:30 pm in person, at 2221 Pacific Street. Council Member Stone has said that she will attend the meeting to answer any questions about her ordinance to suspend the board. We need a strong showing of community support to witness that meeting.
Contact the new mayor, Kim Lund, and tell her that you support the work of the Immigration Advisory Board. This is no way to start her tenure as a Mayor. Now is not the time to shut it down! She can take the opportunity to initiate a fresh and collaborative relationship with the IAB. You can email the mayor at mayorsoffice@cob.org
Email the city council in general and your City Council representative in particular, and urge them to vote NO on the ordinance to suspend the Immigration Advisory Board
City Council: ccmail@cob.org
Hannah Stone, Ward 1: hestone@cob.org
Hollie Huthman, Ward 2: hahuthman@cob.org
Dan Hammill, Ward 3: dchammill@cob.org
Skip Williams. Ward 4: ehwilliams@cob.org
Lisa Anderson. Ward 5: laanderson@cob.org
Michael Lilliquist, Ward 6: mlilliquist@cob.org
Jace Cotton, At-Large: jacotton@cob.org
Ask five friends to email the mayor and city council. Bring them with you to the IAB meeting on January 16th.
Immigration Advisory Board member Tara villalba presents a proposal for a city funded immigrant resource center to city council in october 2022
Community to Community Development has always supported immigrant leadership addressing inequities in the City by using processes that develop solutions with co-governance. Since 2019 the Immigration Advisory Board has put forth the following specific recommendations based on input and priorities from immigrant community members. These recommendations are an indication of strong visionary leadership:
Establish a city-funded immigrant resource center, as has been done in Seattle, San Antonio, New York, and numerous other cities, in collaboration with the Immigration Advisory Board and with ongoing input from immigrant communities.
Provide language access to allow civic participation in all governing spaces, including the city website and in regular council, board and committee meetings.
Improve how data is gathered and analyzed, ensuring there is no racial bias, then implement findings of fact to provide recommendations and advice from the Immigration Advisory Board relevant to city policies and practices to be in compliance with the Keep Washington Working Act and other state laws and data collected by the Immigration Advisory Board.
Support community engagement and integration efforts to ensure that immigrant families have adequate access and information to participate in decision-making spaces on issues that impact immigrants’ daily lives, including equitable and just access to affordable housing, healthcare, education, food security, transportation, civic rules and regulations and workplace safety. Include IAB in the board appointment process to ensure majority immigrant participation.
Establish protocols for language and culturally appropriate engagement and dissemination of information to immigrant communities during climate disasters and other emergency events.
The city has resisted these efforts by not responding to the ongoing work of the Immigration Advisory Board and by refusing to engage in good faith. For three and a half years, the IAB has attempted to collaborate with and advise the City and brought in experts from the ACLU, the Office of Immigration and Refugee Affairs, Immigration Liaison from the City of San Antonio, Cities for Action, the Whatcom Racial Equity Commission and many more to share information with the city about best practices for equity and resource distribution. In October 2022, the IAB gave a detailed presentation to the city council, with a budget and operations proposal for an immigrant resource center. In November 2022, a proposal to fund the Immigrant Resource Center failed by a city council vote of 4-3. What did pass, by a vote of 7-0, was a Request for Proposals to fund an outside contractor who would research and deliver a needs assessment to the city for what an Immigrant Resource Center might do. Immigration Advisory Board members did due diligence with city representatives and scored and interviewed the two organizations that applied in July 2023 and made a recommendation by choosing one of the two orgs as requested. Since that time, no further movement toward awarding that contract has been made by the city. Now with a proposal to suspend the Immigration Advisory Board indefinitely, all of the civic volunteer work that has been done by immigrant community leaders up to this point is at risk of being removed from the publicly accountable process under the auspices of the IAB.
Despite all of these bureaucratic setbacks, the IAB is a historic victory for immigrant families and for our community as a whole.
There is no other space within the city where any language access or participation is accessible. Because of over 15 years of immigrant rights advocacy by C2C, 7 out of 8 of the currently seated board members are immigrants. We are proud of the work accomplished by this board and with this community. The IAB, because it is led by immigrants, creates a space where immigrant community members know they can come and bring their issues regarding housing, health, climate crisis, resources, and unfair labor practices to the city government. This is the first time this has happened. We are not willing to allow the city to shut down the only equitable and diverse active democratic space for immigrants created by immigrants in Bellingham, without calling it out for what it really is, a blatantly punitive undemocratic public shaming of immigrant leaders that have made an effort to be recognized as dignified contributing members of our community
Members of the Immigration Advisory Board are asking their work and leadership be respected and their Board not be suspended, as they have said on the public record.
We don’t know where this is going to go.
C2C will continue to support the voices of immigrant leaders in the IAB, and any effort that will provide equitable representation for immigrant families in our community. We are asking all of our allies to come forward now and show support for this important historical work. Since The Minutemen attacked immigrants in 2006, you have marched with us, stood in vigils, wrote letters, made calls, traveled with us to the NW Detention Center to help release detained family members, accompanied fathers to immigration court, donated food, clothes for families suffering trauma from ICE raids, supported immigrant children left behind when their parents were detained. This is the time to once again stand with C2C, farmworkers and Immigrant families to move forward with systemic change.
Thank you for continuing to show up in solidarity with immigrant community members. Email us for more information or to get involved in supporting this work.
