News & Politics

New Fund Supports Immigrant Workers Not Eligible for Federal Stimulus

Washingtonians looking to help those who've lost jobs during the pandemic can contribute.

Coronavirus 2020

About Coronavirus 2020

Washingtonian is keeping you up to date on the coronavirus around DC.

An organization that supports Latino and immigrant communities in Maryland and Virginia is launching a donation drive to help struggling workers who won’t receive benefits from the federal government’s $2 trillion stimulus package.

The group spearheading the initiative, CASA, is the mid-Atlantic’s biggest member-based Latino and immigrant organization. Many of the people it serves are immigrant workers who have lost income during the pandemic and are not eligible for the benefits included in the federal relief package, CASA said in a press release announcing the creation of the CASA Solidarity Fund.

“Hundreds of community members are suffering as the COVID-19 situation worsens,” CASA Executive Director Gustavo Torres said in the press release. “They lack protective gear for simple tasks, such as going to the grocery store, as well as the resources to provide healthy meals to older adults and children. While those in Washington may deny our humanity, our community and our supporters will rise up in solidarity with our immigrant brothers and sisters who lack the resources to make it through this pandemic.”

CASA says the funds will be used to help cover the basic daily necessities—groceries, medicines—of its vulnerable members, including:

“Immigrants and refugees working in essential jobs, on the frontline to support combating the virus, yet struggling to make ends meet (janitorial/maintenance, grocery cashiers and workers, food delivery and services, etc.)

Temporarily displaced immigrant workers (cleaning and maintenance workers, construction workers, non-essential small business and retail, etc.

Immigrants without health insurance coverage

People in need of life-sustaining medications (diabetes, dialysis, cancer, high blood pressure, asthma, etc.) 

Low-income families with children under 5 and people experiencing homelessness.”

Those interested in helping can contribute to the fund here.

Senior Writer

Luke Mullins is a senior writer at Washingtonian magazine focusing on the people and institutions that control the city’s levers of power. He has written about the Koch Brothers’ attempt to take over The Cato Institute, David Gregory’s ouster as moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, the collapse of Washington’s Metro system, and the conflict that split apart the founders of Politico.