The Honorable Gavin Newsom
Governor of the State of California
State Capitol
Sacramento, California 95814
Dear Governor Newsom,
We write to express our appreciation for your tremendous leadership in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and for your long track record of advancing justice, equity, and inclusion. We also wish to express our strong support of your leadership in protecting and assisting the more than two million undocumented Californians who are excluded from federal relief under the CARES Act and the thousands of immigrants in California who are still subject to harsh immigration enforcement and detention, increasing their exposure to COVID-19. In a pandemic that does not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, or citizenship status, excluding immigrants from relief programs and protection from harsh enforcement actions threatens our state’s economic and social resilience and future prosperity.
Federal exclusions of undocumented immigrants undermine the health and wellbeing of all Californians. Our immigrant neighbors, coworkers, and friends are vital to our economic, civic, and cultural fabric. For example, immigrant farm workers, who number between 500,000 and 800,000, have been designated “essential workers.” In addition, an estimated five million U.S. citizen children in California live in mixedstatus households; providing relief to undocumented parents will support California’s children and families at this critical time.
As philanthropic organizations committed to justice, equity, and inclusion, we urge the State to protect and support immigrant Californians as it considers important funding and policy decisions within the context of the Executive branch’s COVID-19 pandemic response. Specifically, we are requesting that you exercise your Executive Authority to take these six important steps:
1. Expand access to safety-net programs for all currently ineligible low-income immigrants, including: Unemployment Insurance; Paid Sick Leave; health and nutrition programs such as Medi-Cal and the California Food Assistance Program; Cash Assistance for Immigrants, and; California’s Earned Income Tax Credit and Young Child Tax Credit.
2. Establish a direct relief fund to provide cash assistance to immigrant Californians who are ineligible for federal aid. California philanthropic organizations have quickly mobilized millions of dollars in emergency funding, including funding to support community organizations serving impacted immigrants and individual cash assistance programs for extremely vulnerable workers (e.g., day laborers, domestic workers, street vendors, restaurant and hospitality workers, farmworkers, and others). Many of us are also organizing a statewide direct relief fund and would welcome coordinating with direct relief fund efforts by the State.
3. Ensure that immigrant Californians have access to PPE, workplace safety, childcare, and technology. Immigrants are essential to California’s workforce. They supply food, home care, and myriad other critical services to all of our families and communities. Those who are still working urgently need PPE, enforcement of labor rights to ensure their health and safety, and childcare assistance. In addition, most undocumented Californians are parents who lack access to technology for home schooling their children.
4. Ensure that all immigrants, regardless of their immigration status, have access to COVID-19 information, testing, and treatment as part of the State’s effort to flatten the curve and address impact. This includes multilingual health services and emergency announcements and free testing at mobile units in hard-to-reach communities.
5. Halt the expansion of immigration detention in the state, suspend the transfer of individuals from state and local custody to ICE, and advocate with ICE for the release of immigrants in detention in California. These measures would support the State’s efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and its impact on vulnerable communities.
6. Strengthen the ONE California immigration legal assistance programs. With job losses and reduced work hours due to the pandemic, more low-income immigrant workers will urgently need free and low-cost legal services.
In recent years, California has emerged as a resilient economy and society because of its commitment to policies that protect and include vulnerable residents, among them immigrants regardless of their federal immigration status. In the fight against this pandemic, we are all in this together, and we urge you to prioritize supporting immigrant Californians in this critical time. We look forward to working with your office to advance California’s response to the COVID 19 pandemic and our eventual road to a collective recovery. We would welcome the opportunity to meet with your administration to learn more about the State’s efforts to protect immigrant Californians and ways we might partner with you to ensure that all Californians are supported during and after this crisis.
Again, we thank you for your leadership in these unprecedented times and are at your disposal to discuss how we can work even more closely together to meet the needs of our state.
Respectfully,
Christopher Punongbayan, Executive Director California ChangeLawyers
Antonia Hernandez, CEO California Community Foundation
Dr. Robert K. Ross, President & CEO The California Endowment
Judy Belk. President & CEO The California Wellness Foundation
Kris Lin-Bronner, Director & Chief Grants Officer Dr. Bronner’s Family Foundation
Tom Chavez, President/CEO Chavez Family Foundation
Beth Tigay, Executive Director Fineshriber Family Foundation
Sandor Straus, President Firedoll Foundation
Kim Belshé, Executive Director First 5 LA
Anita Khashu, Director Four Freedoms Fund
Daranee Petsod, President Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees
Leslie Dorosin & Rebekah Saul Butler, Co-Executive Directors The Grove Foundation
Cathy Cha, President Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund
Ralph Lewin, Executive Director Peter E. Hass Jr. Family Fund
Jamie Allison, Executive Director Walter & Elise Haas Fund
Deanna Gomby, President & CEO Heising-Simons Foundation
R. Michelle Decker, President & CEO Inland Empire Community Foundation
Don Howard, President & CEO The James Irvine Foundation
Jacqueline Martinez Garcel, CEO The Latino Community Foundation
Dr. Thomas Peters, President & CEO Marin Community Foundation
Claudia Armann, Executive Director McCune Foundation
Terence P. Mulligan, President Napa Valley Community Foundation
Philanthropy California Steve Barton & Phuong Quach, Acting Co-CEOs Northern California Grantmakers
Debbie McKeon, President & CEO San Diego Grantmakers
Christine Essel, President & CEO Southern California Grantmakers
Tim Silard, President Rosenberg Foundation
Chet P. Hewitt, President & CEO Sierra Health Foundation
Marian Kaanon, President & CEO Stanislaus Community Foundation
Fred Blackwell, CEO San Francisco Foundation
Nicole Taylor, President & CEO Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Robert Uyeki, CEO Y & H Soda Foundation
Glen Galaich, CEO Stupski Foundation
Tegan Action, President Sunlight Giving
Tuti Scott, Interim CEO Tides Foundation
Taryn Higashi, Executive Director Unbound Philanthropy
Kate Kroeger, Executive Director Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights
Fred Ali, President & CEO Weingart Foundation
JoAnn Intili & Ed Kissam, Co-Trustees WKF Giving Fund
Allison L. Magee, Executive Director Zellerbach Family Foundation
Latino Community Foundation’s response to COVID-19:
Love Not Fear Fund is a response to the global pandemic that channels critical funds to Latino-led organizations serving California’s most vulnerable communities- our elders, undocumented, farmworkers, and working-class families in the Central Valley and Inland Empire.
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