March 20, 2020
Dear Partners and Friends,
As the COVID-19 crisis evolves, our work to ensure all communities— including California’s 11 million immigrants—have access to the resources they need carries on. California’s immigrant communities continue to display great resilience and flexibility in adapting to this challenging moment. CIPC remains committed to advancing policies to ensure all of our communities can thrive. To our communities, please know that we stand together with you and will continue to fight for health access and the freedom to thrive for everyone who calls California home.
We are advocating to ensure that everyone has access to health insurance, regardless of status, through our Health4All campaign, that all families—as well as those who file with ITINs— are included in the state Earned Income Tax Credit, that we are mitigating the impact of the federal public charge rule and that families are able to stay together instead of separated by cruel immigration enforcement. Join us in ensuring that our communities have a fighting chance during a health crisis that could fundamentally change our lives and communities.
Although we will continue our 2020 campaign and policy advocacy, our staff’s well-being is our top priority. Thus, while we continue our work, we will be adopting additional safety protocols, outlined below. We would like to share our current guidance with you. We will continue to update all of you on our policy platform and legislative priorities as this situation evolves.
We have instructed staff to halt all work-related travel— effective immediately and to cancel any existing travel plans at least through the end of March. We will reassess as the situation develops. Meanwhile, we will move to virtual meetings and communications.
Like many of our community partners, CIPC has asked all staff to work from home until further notice. We are developing and finalizing remote work protocols and determining the appropriate infrastructure needed to sustain our work. We will monitor local safety advisories as well as state and federal guidelines. We are operating regular business hours and you can expect a timely response from us via email and phone.
CIPC will host all meetings and events via virtual video conferencing until further notice. We will reevaluate future events as we get more information about how best to continue to keep everyone safe and healthy. We will update you about how COVID-19 will affect the Immigrant Day of Action in May.
Let us stay in deep solidarity with each other in these trying times.