Executive Orders
Informacion sobre la vacuna
COVID Vaccine Common Questions
COVID19Questions_EnglishBasic
Please find attached a comprehensive and a basic COVID vaccine info document from the Mass League of Community Health Center which debunks some of the myths and misunderstandings around the vaccine. Their website has materials in the following languages as well:
– Arabic
– Cape Verdean Creole
– Chinese
– Haitian Creole
– Khmer
– Brazilian Portuguese
– Spanish
– Vietnamese
President Biden signs immigration executive orders
President Joe Biden signed three executive orders related to immigration on Tuesday afternoon ahead of a swearing-in ceremony for the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The three orders take aim at controversial policies enacted by the Trump Administration, and will include the creation of a task force to reunify an estimated 611 children who still remain separated from their parents more than two years years after the Trump Administration’s “Zero Tolerance” policy.
The orders, announced by the White House in a statement Tuesday morning, will also begin to implement “a comprehensive three-part plan for safe, lawful, and orderly migration,” including a review of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy. They also include reestablishing the Task Force on New Americans and a review of “regulations, policies, and guidance that have set up barriers to our legal immigration system,” including a review of the Trump Administration’s Public Charge rule.
The orders come a day after the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to cancel oral arguments for lawsuits pertaining to Trump’s border wall and MPP, which were scheduled to take place later this month.The Supreme Court granted the DOJ’s request on Wednesday.
Some immigration advocates and legal organizations on Tuesday applauded the new executive orders, but added that they are only a first step toward undoing many of the hardline immigration policies set by the Trump Administration. Ian Kysel, visiting assistant clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School, said in a statement that time will tell how far Biden’s steps to undo these policies will go. He also noted “that time is lived differently by the asylum-seeker camped out in dangerous conditions on the southern border, the immigrant family waiting in a detention center in the midst of the pandemic, and the deported migrant tens of thousands of miles from their loved ones in the U.S.”
Here’s what to know about the three executive orders signed Tuesday.
Family reunification task force
On the campaign trail in October, Biden promised that on day one of his administration he would create a task force to begin tracking down the hundreds of parents who had still not yet been located after being separated from their children. Though it didn’t happen on his first day in office, the President took a first step toward fulfilling that promise on Feb. 2, signing an executive order that to create a new task force that “will work across the U.S. government, with key stakeholders and representatives of impacted families, and with partners across the hemisphere to find parents and children separated by the Trump Administration,” according to a fact sheet released by the White House on Tuesday.
For years, organizations like Justice in Motion and Kids In Need of Defense (KIND) have been working to reunify families who were separated before and during the Trump Administration’s “Zero Tolerance” policy, which was intended to deter unauthorized migration and prosecute all illegal entries into the U.S. The groups say however, that the U.S. government has provided them with outdated or inaccurate contact information for many of the parents, making it difficult to locate them.
Complicating the challenging task of reunification is the fact that many parents were deported without their children, many families are distrustful of the government because of their experience being separated, and the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed on-the-ground searches for parents.
Despite those obstacles, Cathleen Caron, executive director of Justice in Motion, a legal aid nonprofit that has been conducting on-the-ground searches for deported parents in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, says she’s optimistic the remaining missing parents will be located in a few months with the creation of Biden’s task force.
“Trump committed the harm,” Caron tells TIME. “We want Biden to start healing the harm, and he has the power to do that.”
Jennifer Podkul, vice president of policy and advocacy at KIND, an organization that provides legal representation for children, including those who were separated from their parents at the border, tells TIME that this type of interagency task force could lead to new data and information on the remaining missing parents.
“The government has not been forthcoming with all the information they have,” Podkul says. “Hopefully with a new task force that has the authority to bring different agencies to the table…we’ll get information that we didn’t have before.”
Both Caron and Podkul say if the government truly wants to reunify separated families, the deported parents should be offered a pathway to citizenship in the U.S. to be with their children. It could incentivize parents to come forward if they are mistrustful of the government and feel their children are safer remaining in the U.S. without them, she says.
The task force will consider recommendations for the issuance of visas “or other immigration benefits, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law,” but does not specify which parents would be considered for these benefits.
“We really want to see a clear detailed commitment from the Biden Administration to bring the families back,” Caron says. “For them to stay here in safety and start the healing process with their family.”
Asylum and migration to the U.S.
The Biden Administration announced on Jan. 21 that it will stop enrolling people into Trump Administration’s Migrant Protections Protocols program, which requires asylum-seekers to wait out their claims in Mexico. Still, thousands of asylum-seekers who are already in the program continue to wait for an end to MPP. Many of those enrolled in MPP stay close to the border in shelters or tent encampments, exposed to nature and violent cartels.
Tuesday’s executive order did not announce an end to MPP, but the White House said in a public statement that the executive order would direct the new DHS secretary to review the program. “The situation at the border will not transform overnight, due in large part to the damage done over the last four years. But the President is committed to an approach that keeps our country safe, strong, and prosperous and that also aligns with our values,” the White House statement said.
The executive order also aims to rethink asylum procedures and roll back some of the “most damaging policies adopted by the prior administration.” The White House statement did not specify which policies it considers “most damaging.”
The legal immigration process
The third executive order announced Tuesday focuses more on the legal immigration system in the U.S., and rescinds a Trump Administration memo requiring family sponsors to repay the government if relatives receive public benefits. It will also begin the review of the Trump Administration’s Public Charge rule, which began on Aug. 14, 2019. The rule faced many legal challenges, but ultimately the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided the rule could be implemented in Sept. 2020. Ultimately, it means applications for some immigrants, including those wishing to seek permanent legal residency, could be rejected it if the immigrant received public benefits for more than 12 months within any 36-month period and if “at the time of application for admission or adjustment of status, is likely at any time to become a public charge,” according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The Tuesday executive order will also include re-establishing a Task Force on New Americans, which previously existed during the Obama Administration and focused on better integrating immigrants and refugees into American life.
Respond without a census ID guide
THE FEDERAL 2020 CENSUS
How to Id a Census Worker
A Window Opens for the Safe Communities Act!
Dear Safe Communities Coalition members and allies:
When a door closes, a window opens.
The state legislature just voted to continue formal sessions beyond July 31 due to the COVID-19 public health emergency—and we’re thrilled!
With the addition of time, the SCA is in a stronger position than ever, with the support of the Public Safety Committee, growing support in both chambers, ongoing endorsements from major medical institutions, terrific lead sponsors, and advocates both in and outside the State House working to secure the votes we need to win—including you!
And we need your help to build our ground game across the state over the next couple of months.
Here’s what YOU can do this summer to get this bill to the finish line:
If you live in Greater Boston: Join a phone or text bank to reach constituents in swing districts and ask for those votes! Sign up here and we’ll get in touch with dates and times.
If you live outside Greater Boston: We need community advocates! Do you have connections to your local government, human rights committee, Democratic City Committee, faith-based or other networks? Can you help us build hyper-local support? Let us know right here!
Have you written a letter to the editor of your local paper yet?
We have samples right here! (Send us a copy!) Need a fact sheet? Also here!
And don’t forget to stay engaged with the SCA Coalition members on Facebook @safecommunitiesma.
Thank you for all you’ve done for immigrant communities this session. None of this would be possible without you!
On behalf of the SCA Coalition,
Amy Grunder
Director of State Policy & Legislative Affairs
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition
Everyone deserves to be counted’: Massachusetts advocates push back against president’s memo excluding undocumented immigrants from census count
By Steph Solis | ssolis@masslive.com
Massachusetts advocates blasted a memo signed by President Donald Trump Tuesday afternoon excluding undocumented immigrants from census counts that determine Congressional representation, calling the move unconstitutional.
“This is just another desperate move for him to try to scare our immigrant community,” said Patricia Sobalvarro, executive director of the Boston-based immigration organization Agencia ALPHA. “I feel it’s just him trying to weaponize the Census and attack our immigrant community.”
Sobalvarro and other immigrant rights advocates in Massachusetts raised concerns about the chilling effect the latest memo has on immigrant communities, who are already hesitant to take part in the decennial count.
The memo instructs U.S. Secretary of Commerce to exclude immigrants without legal status from apportionment after the 2020 Census.
The memo references Trump administration’s efforts to put a citizenship question on the Census, which the U.S. Supreme Court blocked in a decision in July 2019. The memo does not explain how the U.S. Census Bureau could determine citizens from non-citizens and immigrants with legal status from those without immigration status.
Secretary of State William Galvin called the memo “an almost unprecedented effort to politicize the Census,” the State House News Service reported.
As of Tuesday, 64.2% of Massachusetts households have responded to the Census.
The memo has sparked criticism from elected officials, immigration attorneys and advocates who have spent more than a year encouraging foreign-born residents to take part in the count.
The American Civil Liberties Union said it would sue the Trump administration as it did to block the inclusion of a citizenship question.
Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, tweeted that excluding millions of people from being counted is unjust and unconstitutional.
“Everyone deserves to be counted,” Millona tweeted. “Everyone deserves to be represented.”
Roxana Rivera, vice president of 32BJ SEIU, said the contradicts the U.S. Constitution’s mandate of a count to elicit fear in immigrant communities.
“As one of the largest unions in the country with a majority immigrant membership, we support all efforts to defeat this outrage in court and will redouble our efforts to encourage every single person to get counted in Census 2020,” Rivera said.
It’s unclear exactly how many immigrants without legal status live in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center estimated last year that 185,000 undocumented immigrants call the Bay State home.
Agencia ALPHA in Boston, certified by the Board of Immigration Appeals to offer certain legal services, serves clients from more than 60 countries with varying forms of status. Most are from Latin America, but others hail from Greece, Morocco, Bangladesh, Nepal and elsewhere, Sobalvarro said.
The organization had planned to open questionnaire assistance centers and coordinate with churches to draw immigrants and other minorities who are considered historically “hard to count” to take the Census.
Those plans fell apart when the coronavirus pandemic hit.
“We still encounter much resistance and mistrust and people are scared, right?” she said. “Because of their immigration status, it has been an uphill battle and I haven’t even gotten to the COVID part on how that just messed up our outreach efforts.”
When the pandemic hit Massachusetts, Sobalvarro said the organization and others have reached out to residents through phone banks, Facebook Live sessions and communications over WhatsApp and other platforms.
She tells clients the count is key to making sure resources are made available to communities of color, including parts of Boston that were hit hard during the coronavirus pandemic.
While Trump’s memo may make her work harder, Sobalvarro said residents can’t afford not to be counted and lose out on federal funding.
“We’re not going to back down. We’re going to continue to inform, be there for the community and understand that at the end of the day, if we don’t partake in the census, we are hurting our own immigrant communities,” she said.
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