Immigrants, especially immigrants of color, are not being provided equal access to safe housing, living-wage jobs, healthcare, and full civic and community participation. When it comes to basic human rights, government inaction and unjustified delay effectively deny those rights.

Many disasters hit immigrant communities disproportionately hard, including recent flooding, the pandemic, and growing housing injustice. These vulnerabilities are made worse by unequal access to local government resources, including services, funding, and representation, due to inadequate or nonexistent language accommodation, as well as general isolation from and non-accountability to immigrant communities.

It is important for the immigrant resource center to be city-funded because immigrants pay taxes and have a civic responsibility to ensure that money is used in a racially equitable way. The non-profit model does not serve the immigrant community with the dignity that they are demanding. Immigrants are asking for participation in the governance of their own spaces.

The City of Bellingham Mayor has expressed support for an Immigrant Resource Center and the Bellingham City Council has voted unanimously to request that the Mayor’s Office develop a proposal to this end. Directly affected community members and allies advocated for this first step and expect timely and accountable follow-through.

We call on the Bellingham Mayor and City Council to establish a city-funded Immigrant Resource Center with mandates determined by impacted community members of the Immigration Advisory Board, in consultation with impacted communities, with the following provisions:

• that any ordinance or executive order establishing an Immigrant Resource Center shall create an oversight role for the Immigration Advisory Board;
• that the establishment of a Immigrant Resource Center shall include measurable goals for the center and mandate an annual report to, and quarterly meetings with, the City of Bellingham Immigration Advisory Board;
• that the establishment of an Immigrant Resource Center shall provide funding for center staff including an Executive Director chosen by and accountable to the Immigration Advisory Board;
• that the Immigrant Resource Center shall have the ability to expand its activities and offerings to flexibly meet the real-world needs of local immigrant communities,
• that the Immigrant Resource Center shall have a mandate to create accessible and frequent opportunities for community input on the direction of the agency.

For more information on the Migration Makes Us Stronger Campaign tune into this podcast from CommunityVOZ:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/728393/11123609

Photo Credit: Lorenzo Huerta