A year ago, I announced that I would be leaving PICC in 2021. I stepped into the role of PICC’s Executive Director with a commitment to creating space for immigrant leaders, which includes stepping aside for new leadership of the organization. As my final day at PICC draws closer, I wanted to give all of you an update on our transition process.

Last year, PICC’s staff and board created a transition plan to ensure we would be able to strengthen our coalition's work while finding the next leader of PICC. When we started this process, we had no idea we would be working through a global pandemic and one of the most contentious elections in memory. Through it all, PICC staff and coalition members have met community needs and continued the long-term work of systems change by distributing over half a million dollars in emergency assistance, reaching out to over 50,000 new American voters, leading a summer youth leadership conference, and launching the Campaign for Tuition Equity.

To support a transparent hiring process, PICC staff and board selected a Search and Hiring Committee composed of board members, staff, youth leaders, and representatives from PICC’s membership. For the past few months this committee has been actively screening and interviewing candidates, and through this participatory process, we feel confident we will soon find the next leader of PICC – one who is excited and ready to lead PICC into a critical new political moment.

Although this is not yet goodbye, I do want to say thank you to our extended PICC community – staff, Board, volunteers, interns, donors, and friends. Our strength as an organization is rooted in the vision and commitment of all of you to building a movement together, and I have been honored to be a part of this community.

I look forward to introducing you all to PICC’s next Executive Director soon!

In love and struggle,

Sundrop

La Puerta Abierta works to empower youth and families through a peer-mentor training model to function as “first responders” in the local immigrant and refugee community and offers a bilingual, culturally and trauma-informed source of pro bono counseling support that is flexible and accessible.

Over the many months that the pandemic has impacted our local and global communities, LPA has seen the consequences of intensified isolation of newcomer youth to our region. Housing and food insecurity, family stress and social disconnection has pulled more and more youth from academic engagement, especially in these days of virtual learning.

During the summer of 2020, at the height of the pandemic and under the leadership of LPA's youth coordinator, Tamara Jiminez, LPA's youth mentor program, Compas de Viaje, began intensive training and coordination of three senior "compas" who continue to be key members of the youth programming team. Each week, they maintain contact with their individual cohorts of youth, providing peer support, fellowship and theme-based "charlas" with a growing number of newcomers who are working hard to find their way. Referrals to the Compas program are made by educators, health clinics and other peers in the community.

We're proud to do be doing our small part to foster connection, peer to peer, especially during these stressful and distressing times!

Over the past four years, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has deported nearly 1 million individuals from the United States. In 2017, a ProPublica investigation found that the Philadelphia ICE office arrested more undocumented immigrants without criminal convictions than any other office in the country. Yet despite ICE’s annual $8 billion budget and 400 local offices, it relies heavily on local officials and law enforcement to assist with its enforcement operations. In Pennsylvania, this collaboration includes formal contracts to use county jails to detain immigrants, ad hoc information sharing, and holding people based on ICE hold requests. In response, advocates have pushed local elected officials to enact policies that prohibit collaboration with ICE. These policies can slow, or even stop, ICE from separating families and communities.

In partnership with the Sheller Center for Social Justice at Temple Law School, PICC is excited to release "Dismantling ICE in Pennsylvania" a new toolkit for advocates to continue this fight across Pennsylvania.

Learn more about this new advocacy tool and how you can get involved in ending local collaboration with ICE during a public webinar Friday, Feb. 26, 11am-12pm. Register today! 

It’s not enough to praise immigrant workers as heroes. We need our legislators to stand up for immigrant communities by ensuring everyone receives assistance, including every family who files using an ITIN. Congress is currently deciding on the next COVID Relief package. Call and Email your Member of Congress today and demand they include all immigrant families in the next COVID relief package.

Fighting for Federal Policy Change

Working with our member organizations, PICC has established a set of five federal policy priorities to guide our advocacy work for the next four years. Though the flaws in the immigration system pre-date 2016, the system was weaponized by the most recent Administration. This calls for a response that addresses both urgent needs and long term structural change. Although not comprehensive, these priorities encompass many of the legislative and administrative policy changes that will build toward a just and humane immigration system: addressing the need for inclusive social supports, dismantling the brutal immigration enforcement machine, and clearing the pathway to citizenship. Read more about PICC's federal priorities.

As a member of Keystone Votes, PICC works to ensure that elections that are safe, secure, fair and accessible to all – including New American voters who are a growing power in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has come a long way – passing Act 77 in 2019 which allows vote-by-mail – but there still work to do to modernize our elections and make them accessible and secure. Keystone Votes has a comprehensive plan to enhance voter engagement:

• Improve Vote-by-Mail Process: Defend against rollbacks to vote-by-mail; push for earlier pre-canvassing, voter notification of ballot accuracy, and counting ballots postmarked by Election Day; and allow the “National Change of Address Form” to help with registration updates.
• Modernize Process to Enhance Security, Voter Access: Allow early in-person voting, same-day voter registration and the establishment of vote centers.
• Provide Funding to Support Secure, Efficient Operations: Ensure counties have the funds they need for satellite election offices and electronic poll books.
  

Look for more detailed summaries of these policies proposals in the coming weeks. In the meantime, please visit Keystone Votes to learn more about the full legislative agenda