Hey Team,

As you’re all aware, this is a time of extremely high anxiety and fear for our immigrant communities in Richmond and beyond, and I’d like to get more explicit about how we voice and lend our support here.

I’d like to establish a Cross-Agency Immigrant Support Working Group to share information, develop strategy and procedure, and be positioned to respond in real time to emergent threats and challenges.

This working group will consist of me, CAO, senior staff in the Mayor’s Office, DCAO for Human Services, Police Chief, Manager of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Empowerment, and the Directors of Intergovernmental Affairs and the Office of Strategic Communications. If you would like to bring one additional staff person from your agency to these meetings with additional expertise and engagement in this area, please let Sarah Carpenter know. We will also invite participation from Richmond Public Schools and from the Sheriff’s Office.

I am asking Kelsey to find an hour in the near future to kick us off, and then some follow up meetings so we’re all communicating on this in real time. I’ll also be looking to this group to connect with key community partners in this work.

Thanks,
Danny