Trillion-dollar Economic Aid Plan Benefits Many, But Who is Left Out? – In response to economic paralysis following “shelter-in-place” orders in more than twenty states across the country to curb the coronavirus pandemic, Congress approved an economic aid package worth more than $2 trillion. The massive plan includes direct payments to taxpayers, unprecedented unemployment benefits, emergency investments in hospitals and medical equipment, and bailouts for large companies and small businesses alike. While they acknowledge the plan’s economic benefits, social activists criticize the exclusion of a large population of immigrants, many of whom are on the front lines in the fight against the pandemic. José López Zamorano has the details from Washington.
Fearing Coronavirus, Detainees Awaiting Asylum Demand Freedom – As the first coronavirus case was confirmed at an immigration detention center in New Jersey, a group of women held in Louisiana while immigration courts process their application of asylum say they are being exposed to the coronavirus due to overcrowding and lack of sanitation. This week, the inmates held a demonstration with posters demanding that they be released and allowed to continue the process in freedom. Rubén Tapia has this report.
Mayan Interpreters Manage to Continue Census Promotion Work – Historically, migrant and indigenous communities are the least counted in the U.S. census and therefore the most invisible in society and government. Their failure to participate in the census is due to mistrust of the government. Furthermore, census materials are not available in indigenous languages, and the census vocabulary is difficult to translate. Today, the suspension of public events to promote the census due to the coronavirus pandemic is making the work of indigenous census promoters even more difficult. Fernando Andrés Torres explains what Mexican and Guatemalan Mayan interpreters are doing to overcome the various obstacles and convince the tens of thousands of Mayan-speakers residing in the San Francisco Bay Area of the importance of being counted.
