This week we’ve invited Liz Dunbar, Executive Director of Tacoma Community House, to talk with us about immigration and what services TCH offers to the greater Tacoma community. The mission of the Tacoma Community House is to help immigrants, refugees and other community members in the South Sound area move towards integration, self-sufficiency in the community. Join us as we talk about this incredibly important and timely topic:
In this episode:
The TCH process – TCH has four core programs that focus on education, employment, immigration and advocacy (for crime victims). Through these programs, immigrants and refugees can take English classes, find jobs and citizenship courses. Many people utilize more than one program at TCH.
The public charge issue – As the Trump administration continues to focus on immigrants and limiting the services available to them, many are worried that if they use public services like food banks they could be targeted by ICE and denied visas or legal permanent residency. To address this, TCH hosted a public forum on December 10th to go over what services could affect their citizenship process and what won’t.
The top concern – For many of TCH’s clients, their top concern is securing citizenship. Many of the people they serve have secured green cards or are in the process of securing one so their concerns are not the same as refugees that have yet to be granted entry to the United States. Because of this, TCH has a high number of people interested in Citizenship courses and using TCH’s services to figure out the citizenship process.
Left to right: Claire, Liz, Jessica and Laine.