San Francisco Immigrant Forum - Regular Meeting

All right, welcome in everyone for today's SF Immigrant Forum regular webinar meeting. Today is Wednesday, January 28th, 2026. We'll get started in just a moment as we allow some folks to sign on. All right. Welcome, everyone. We're going to get started. Again, you're at today's SF Immigrant Forum regular webinar. I'll go over the agenda briefly. If this is your first or your seventh immigrant forum meeting, welcome. We started these about a year ago, and so I'm happy to be here again. Just an overview of what we're going to be discussing today. We'll start out with an overview of what the immigrant forum is. Here's some updates from the steering committee of city departments that operate the forum. And then we'll hear from our presenters who are going to be sharing information and resources on the special topic of emergency preparedness planning for immigrant communities. We're going to be hearing from the San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network, SF Island, followed by the San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment. And then we'll conclude with our partners at Mission Asset Fund. Each of the presenters will be sharing information and resources. If you have questions about their presentation or for the speaker, please use the Q&A function located at the bottom of your Zoom. We will be collecting those questions and then I'll be facilitating a Q&A with each presenter after they conclude their presentation. So again, if you have questions, please use that Q&A function. And then we'll wrap up with some reminders. All right, and before I get started into an overview of the forum, I just wanted to, at the start of 2026, really hold space and acknowledge the current moment we're in. in the United States and really acknowledge those that have been killed by ICE enforcement or in detention in the last year and particularly this month. And those that are, you know, doing their best to provide resources to our immigrant communities. I just want to acknowledge that a lot of you are service providers that support immigrants in San Francisco and the larger Bay Area. And we are committed to continuing providing a space to share resources that empower the communities that we serve. And we just really appreciate all of you continuing to show up. Again, whether this is your seventh or first or third forum meeting, we really value this space and are committed to providing resources as we move ahead. So thank you for being here and just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the moment that we're in. All right, so with that, speaking of resources, our forum is made up of three components. A website, an email listserv, and the webinars like today. There are many ways to engage and share resources and we encourage Those that are attending today also engage in all three aspects if you aren't already. The first one being the website of resources. This is really helpful for service providers, but also immigrant community members themselves can go to the city website, sf.gov slash immigrants, and get access to information about free to low cost immigration services, health information, public benefits, as well as know your rights information and a variety of other resources. resources like upcoming immigration workshops and more. So if you haven't used that website, please check it out. Please encourage others to view it as well. It is also available to view in Spanish, Chinese, Filipino, and Vietnamese. So it is a multilingual website. And if you are not already on our Google Group listserv, you can join the listserv and share upcoming opportunities that your organization might be hosting. Ask for assistance finding some resources. It's a great way to share with other members that are in this forum network. And you also get up-to-date information from me about upcoming workshops or upcoming forum meetings. And if you need help accessing the listserv or it's not working on your end, you can always email osea at civic.engagement at sfgov.org. That email is at the bottom of the screen, and we can help you out for joining. And lastly, you're here today, so you're already participating in our regular forum meetings. We host these on a bi-monthly basis. So the next one will be on March 25th. And the topic is going to be announced in the next couple of weeks, but we are using this space to provide relevant resources. There are other spaces that are doing kind of up-to-date immigration updates on the federal scale, but we really want to use this to share resources from you all. So there's also an opportunity for folks to volunteer to present at upcoming meetings. where you can sign up for that. If you have something that you'd like to share with this group that is, you know, something that's evergreen or an upcoming event that fits within our schedule, you can sign up using this QR code and let us know what, you know, presentation you'd like to pitch. And if it works with an upcoming meeting, we can host you and have you present on all the awesome work or opportunities that your organization provides. So I'll leave this up in case anyone wants to scan that QR code and save it. All right. So I'm going to get into the updates from our city departments. I'll start on my end and I didn't introduce myself, but my name is Jamie Richardson. I am the Senior Communications Specialist for the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs with the City. And some updates on our end from OCEA. We've been, you know, working closely with us, city leadership, monitoring the federal immigration situation and preparing for you know, the upcoming Super Bowl and response there. So members from OCSE will be there monitoring community needs and messaging ahead of that event. And this is also ongoing. So we're doing that. And we are also monitoring, if folks haven't heard, there's been legislation proposed by Supervisor Mahmoud and Supervisor Chen in San Francisco to have ice-free zones that would block agencies like ICE from using city-owned buildings, parks, even parking lots or anything that could disrupt public services. That is currently in a committee for the Board of Supervisors and it should be heard sometime soon. What's exciting about this legislation is that it would allow our city attorney to take legal action if federal agents use property for unauthorized purposes, including immigration enforcement. So Hope to share more on that soon. But related and also exciting is that the Alameda County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a similar proposal in Alameda County yesterday. So hoping to hear more about that on the local level. Some upcoming workshops on our end, we host in partnership with the San Francisco Pathways to Citizenship Initiative, naturalization workshops. Our next one is going to be on February 28th at Chinatown City College. And those appointments are now available. I'll drop the link in the chat for folks to connect people with that resource. And we also anticipate hosting another work permit EAD application in early April with more to come. All of these events are listed on sf.gov slash immigrants if you need to check it out. And my last update before I pass it along is on February 3rd, so next week, OCO will be launching our DreamSF fellowship application for eligible applicants. The fellowship is a leadership and professional development program for immigrant youth to get connected to working in immigration nonprofits in San Francisco and get hands-on experience. So that opens up next Tuesday and related later in the month, we'll be releasing a host organization application. So if you are an organization that supports immigrants and you're interested in hosting a Dream SF fellow for the, you know, this summer into next year, that application will also be open and we'll have some info sessions for all of the above. And I can drop some info in the chat or my colleague can. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to Christy from the Department of Public Health.

Go ahead, Christy. Hi, thank you. So the Department of Public Health and myself want to just remind everyone that despite the new and ongoing Medi-Cal restrictions, that healthcare access is available to all San Franciscans. So those without the new Medi-Cal eligible status are still eligible for Healthy San Francisco. which covers care at many clinics across the city. And there is also the San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium that consists of 12 nonprofit community health centers that provide a range of health services for free and sliding scale fees. And for those 19 and over, there is still restricted scope Medi-Cal benefits that are available and limited to emergency care and pregnant related services. An other update I want to share that aligns with our theme today about preparedness is that DPH is informing communities that in response to Super Bowl events in the city, that there will be increased presence of police as well as potential homeland security vehicles in the Civic Center, Selma, and downtown areas from January 31st to February 8th. And so the public health emergency response and preparedness team will be sending related text messages updates. So you can text the word Super Bowl SF to 88877. I think that'll go in the chat to receive messages, updates that are related to street closures, emergency events specific to the Super Bowl event areas. And if you haven't already, you can sign up for AlertSF, which is San Francisco's official year-round emergency text alert system, and that you just text your zip code to the same number. And you can also enroll at AlertSF.org. And I'll go ahead and pass to my colleague Andy with Human Services Agency.

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. This is Andy Beatley-Hegler from the San Francisco Human Services Agency, and happy to be here in this time that's increasingly challenging for many of us. I did want to review some of the changes that Christy mentioned. And so I'll just start with those now, and I'll paste some of this in the chat as well. The first change I wanted to talk about involves changes to Medi-Cal, and these changes went into effect on January 1st of this year, 2026. And so the main change was for people in California without immigration documentation, and so Undocumented Californians aged 19 and older who currently do not receive Medi-Cal benefits are no longer eligible to enroll for full medical coverage through Medi-Cal. So that's the big change. Now that's people who, you know, did not already have Medi-Cal. For those who already have Medi-Cal, you get to keep your benefits as long as you renew those benefits. So those are the changes to Medi-Cal as of January 1st, 2026. And then there are more public benefits changes coming soon. So that is the second one there, the second link that I posted. First link is for changes to Medi-Cal as of January 1st. The second link is talking about public benefit changes coming soon. And so the main change coming soon that I wanted to highlight was that for those without documents, dental benefits are ending as of July 1st, 2026. So again, that's July 1st, 2026. Dental benefits will end for Californians without immigration documentation. The third link that I'm sending is about CalFresh, which is otherwise known as food stamps. And as you might remember, during the government shutdown, there were emergency cards that were sent out that people were able to access to get funds for food. And so I just wanted to make sure to say that those cards can still be used. all the way through March 31st of 2026. So if you're a CalFresh recipient and you, well, any CalFresh recipient who was receiving CalFresh during that time of the government shutdown, I believe it was November, should have access to that card. And so if you haven't used it yet, you want to use that before March 31st, 2026, because after that it will run out. So I think that's really all that I have to present right now. And I think I will pass it back to Jamie.

Thanks, Andy. And our colleague Vicki wasn't able to make it today, but I know from the mayor's office on housing and community development side, they are working hard to issue a budget supplemental that will help our immigrant legal defense organization. So she passed along that update to me, but more on that at our next one. I'm going to stop sharing my screen and now we'll transition into our invited speakers to provide their presentations and to introduce our first speaker. I'm going to pass it to my colleague Elena Jimenez to introduce our first speaker. Over to you, Elena.

Hello, we would like to first introduce Yesenia Lacayo, who is SF Island's Senior Program Manager, to learn more about SF Island's emergency toolkit and related resources. Thank you so much for joining us today. We're really grateful for your tips on preparing immigrant families for emergency family plans. Thank you again.

Thank you, folks, for this space. Let me tinker here and do my screen share. And then I'm going to share a quick PowerPoint, and then I actually want to share and look at the toolkit with folks so we can look at it as a group together and really kind of go into it and really feel if folks have any questions, I want to be able to answer those. So let me do two things first, and then we'll go ahead and show that toolkit. All right. Let me make sure you guys can see my screen here. All right. All right, perfect. Thank you, folks. So I wanted to not spend too much time explaining who SF Island and SFRN are, but I think it is important for community folks to know, especially if it's first time folks are here in this space. So SF Island is the San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network. We were formed in 2006. We are now a coalition of 11 immigrant-led and 11 immigrant-serving organizations throughout San Francisco that provide outreach, know your rights education, and general community-based support. And then we also collaborate with another network, SFLDC, but right now representing SFILN and SFRRN. And so SFRRN is the San Francisco Rapid Response Network. And so this, again, is a joint network collaboration of SF Island partners, plus Asoceso Mayab and our new partner, SOMCAN, and also SFLDC, who works with us. And so SFRN, what we do is also we operate the 24-hour response line, and I hope you guys can see the number right here. And so 24-7 rapid response hotline, and that number is 415-215-4800. And so that is a 24-7 run number in San Francisco. Let me go right here. And so SFILN, as mentioned, these are all of our partners that are in collaboration with the network. And so within this network collaboration, again, as mentioned, we do education outreach. And then with SFIRN, the partners also run the hotline. So I kind of talked about this a little bit. So who are we again? We formed in 2006. We do direct services, representation, form processing, consultations, and education presentations. Know your rights. Ways to contact us. I'm going to leave this up here for a second. So folks can get our email down, sfislandnetwork at gmail.com to request workshops. And as mentioned, if you guys do need additional support, you guys can always contact us at SF Island and we can help you get directed to the services you guys need. So rapid response. Again, the Rapid Response Network. I'm speaking a little bit about the Rapid Response Network. It's a 24-7 hotline that we run every that serves in assistance for ICE certification. It also serves for assisting detained individuals. So we have the Attorney of the Day that is available. If folks call in, again, they have to be San Francisco residents. We can find ways to support them within certain jurisdictions that go into that. Also, we can support folks if they need to have accompaniment for ICE check-ins. We understand that now it is a lot scarier to go to the courts by yourselves. So call us for resources. We can try to figure out who to connect you to if possible. So one of the things too is that the hotline does more ICE certifications and direct services in regards to someone directly being detained. There are other networks and other programs within our community that are helping folks with the check-ins and stuff like that. If folks do fear their safety, call us. We can try to help you out in terms of how to navigate those systems. But again, just to focus that the RRN line is more so for the ICE certifications and emergency detain. Putting out here, if you guys see the little red cards, those are always great to carry. One of the things that I tell folks, if you can save that number, that 200 number, right in your phone, it's always a good thing to have for emergencies. I'm putting this up here again. So for the Rapid Response Network, if you guys need printed materials, please reach out to us. If you guys need Know Your Writes presentations, please reach out to us and we can do those at your sites. We have been working on materials. So Thais is the program manager for the Rapid Response Network with us. We are working on some outreach materials so folks can see and learn a little bit more of how the hotline works, how we can service folks and best ways to guide them. We will put out these materials also on our website and I'll put a QR code for folks to access that. But just kind of a quick screen view of what the network kind of processes in terms of like what folks should do. One, if you call the line, what does the next step mean, right, for us? Like how do we fortify? What if someone is and needs detention support? What would be the next steps for that? If someone needs an urgent legal consultation, what would be the steps for that? And so really kind of giving folks a guide just because things are very different now than they were maybe about a year or so ago. And so we really want to make sure to make make sure the community has a sense of power and not panicking because of misinformation or lack of information. So we're trying to put out these new resources that are a little bit easier to read, a little bit easier guide for folks. So you'll see these coming out soon. And it also gives us this quick snapshot, which I think is really good to have also for like young kids or young adults. You know, this part right here, if someone you love is detained by ICE, what do you need to know? And I think one of the biggest informations, and this is going to go and tie in with the family toolkit, is really, you know, most of the time it's either the patriarch or the matriarch of the home who gets detained. So for the young adults or the younger kids really knowing this information, the number one, A number, date of birth, country of citizen, preferred language, detention location, family contact information, Seven, brief immigration criminal history, which gets really intense if you're a middle school kid or a high school kid and you have to bring up this information. Now you have to look for it. So we're going to segue a bit into the family toolkit and the importance of that because this is a lot of heavy information for any young adult to hold or especially a kid to hold. Or even in a moment of panic, we kind of think of like, where is this stuff? What is that number? What day was it? So we want to make sure the goal of the family toolkit is to have a one place where the family members have, where everything is accessible, the medical information, the legal information, who is the emergency contact. And so we'll go a little bit into that. All right. I know I'm more focused on the family toolkit, but I just wanna make sure folks kind of have a quick snapshot of know your rights. So again, ICE and other law enforcement cannot enter any private area without permission or warrant signed by a judge. Don't open the door without a signed warrant. You don't have to answer questions or show ID to ICE. You don't need to sign anything you don't understand. Don't attempt to run away from ICE. Instead ask, am I free to go or am I being detained? Don't lie or provide false documentation to an ICE officer. And I think one of the biggest things, oh, I kind of scrolled too quick here. Sorry, folks. To try to document stuff. At this point in time, it's really scary to document. So do it at a safe distance. Maintain your safety first. Because these documentations help us also with the rapid response network. Say if you do see eyes or do you see something suspicious, you can always take a picture of or videotape it and pardon, text it over to our number to the 415-200-1548 number. We can receive text messages there as well. So we can support the community with verification. One of the things we want to do is also make sure that we're verifying these encounters. We don't want to kind of, you know, do, you know, We don't want to make people riled up. We don't want to make people worry. We don't want to make people panic. So we want to make sure that we are verifying these encounters, that it is ICE. And so again, if you are detained by ICE, make sure that whoever your family member is, your sub-community member, they can get your A number, your date of birth, and your full name. So folks can look you up and assess them, and they know that you are being detained. Stay calm and silent. You have the right to remain silent. You don't need to answer any questions. You have to just ask for an attorney. Say you want to speak with an attorney. Don't sign any documents without any legal advice. Don't feel pressured into it. It's going to be really rough spaces. And so it's really telling people just know that you can continuously say, I just want to speak to my attorney. Don't show any false documents. Don't lie in those spaces. try to see if you can call the rapid response line if needed or have a family member call the rapid response line with your information, where you got detained, the space, time, and if they know where you're being taken. And then again, this is where we go into that family planning kit where we're asking folks to keep copies of important information, right? So your family members having your A numbers, very, very important. So again, just kind of repeating this stuff because I think this is important for us to know, because these are our rights, right? So if ICE comes to your door, don't open your door. Remain silent. Don't sign anything and call the rapid response line, your local rapid response line. So if you are in San Francisco, call the 415-215-1548. And then again, if ICE approaches you on the street, again, you have the right to refuse to give them your ID and name. You can refuse to answer their questions. If they detain you, you can ask for an attorney. You can call us immediately, have a family member call us immediately at the 415-200-1548. And so again, save those numbers, please. So again, just kind of to reiterate, we want to make sure that we are making sure we practice power, not panic. We have the right to remain silent, try to limit the amount of information that we give ICE officers. As we know, one of the main strategies is to kind of manipulating folks into self-incrimination. If ICE has the legal authority to do something, they will likely do it, enter a home. If they're asking permission, you most likely are able to say no to them. So kind of putting out that QR code. If you guys see that QR code, it's going to be on a couple of slides. This is a QR code directly to our publications on the SF Island Network. We are working on updating some of the stuff on that. But there is a lot of relevant information like our emergency family toolkit, and then some stuff you guys can print out and also place on your businesses if you guys have businesses. So again, The emergency family plan, and then I'll stop sharing and share different documents so we can kind of see it together. So our emergency family plan, we want to make sure that folks have this document. It was something that was created to be shared with your whole family to help ensure that you guys are all set. If anything does happen, everyone has the tools to be able to support each other in terms of the questions that may come. in those unknown spaces, who to reach out to, who the support system is, and then who are safe people that folks can contact as well. One of the things too is that I tell folks when I saw this emergency family planning kit for the first time, I thought it was great. We live in San Francisco, not to be, you know, earthquake county and stuff like that. So it's a general safety kit. I don't want folks to approach it as a thing that we, you know, it's such a scary thing that we're doing now. It's, it's an emergency planning kit that we should all have. Right. Um, and it's a great tool to have now. Um, but some additional stuff too, just because we live in spaces where there are emergencies. Um, if with your emergency planning kit, you want to have some flashlights, some extra medication, chargers, the copies of documents again, um, having meeting spaces, and then we'll go through the emergency planning kit together. But the goal of it is really to kind of think of these things, remembering if you have small kids, planning childcare in case of an emergency, planning your emergency contacts for the school, updating everyone's information and putting them in a space where everyone knows that it's safe and accessible to everyone, keeping copies of everyone's immigration documents and any other important documents, whether it's the house lease, access to PG&E accounts, bill accounts, credit cards, bank accounts. And then again, don't share this information with agents or police officers, right? Let's go here. And so some of the checklists, and we'll see these in the emergency family planning toolkit, which I'll share to you guys. So again, Just a checklist of important documents, as mentioned, passports, birth certificates for all the family members in the house, anyone who's going to be responsible for anyone that is underage if things do happen, childhood affidavit, restraining orders if applicable, A numbers, so people's immigration, important immigration numbers and information, their green card information. work permits, any notices, any letters, future appointments, things like that. Anything that needs to be copied and placed into that folder should be placed in their driver's license. And then any medical information for the kids too. Other things to consider that we may not think of, copy of the car keys, house keys, pet care, if there is any specialized needs for your pets, any specialized Meetup locations, if we are on the street and get separated, what is a safe place for us to go meet up at? And then if there's a safe word for the family as well. So one of the things that I do tell folks as community members is to have a action step, right? Best thing to do is practice ourselves, right? So I tell folks for tonight's 10 minute action steps for all of us to take as folks in community is to save the 415-200-1548 number in your phone. Share it with your family. Write down your meeting places, out of area contacts and post it somewhere visible. You know, plan out this conversation with your family, with little ones too. Think about the folder. What folder are you going to get? It's going to be a paper digital folder. Are you going to have the copies of all the documents there. What does this look like for you? Where am I going to place this? What is the safe space? And just starting to think about those things, inventory, house keys, car keys, any additional storage keys. Do I need to make extra copies of these stuff? Start thinking of family medication, family medical needs. What does that look like? Should I have extra prescriptions? Should I just have a printout of that health narrative and put it in this safe space? And then just kind of start listing places to update release of information and emergency contacts. Are my kids at the YMCA? Are they at the afterschool program? Who are the key people that can come and pick them up? And again, just kind of putting our website and our RRN website, pardon, website emails. So you guys can contact us if you guys need workshops or if you guys need printed materials, please feel free to reach out to us. The QR code for the publications is up there, the actual website. And then again, our number 415-215-48. I'm going to do a quick stop screen share because I do want us to look at the family toolkit together real quick because I think it's important for us to see it. So let me share that.

All right.

And then let me make a small here real quick. All right. So this is what the family toolkit will look like. The emergency toolkit, as mentioned, it will have some listed numbers here for folks to have support in. As I mentioned, our network is made of different nonprofits within San Francisco. And so we will have help in different languages that folks can reach out to and get more one on one. guidance on any information that they may need. And it's, again, going to have kind of that quick overview of what we talked about, talked about SF Island. But what I really wanted to get into, it also talks about your immigration status. It really does explain a little bit of a chart in terms of like what documents you have, what are your risks, can you vote, traveling, things like that. But I really did want to go down here to a couple of things. There are some tools here for anyone who does get detained and they want to find out where their loved one is. Say they don't know, they called the RRN line, they're still waiting. Folks can go onto this link here that's listed here, which will take them to the online detainee locator system. So that'll be listed on the family toolkit for folks already to access. It will have hotline numbers for other counties if needed. And again, it'll tell you what you need in order to find that loved one, whether it's, which is their A number, date of birth, country of origin, and their full name. It talks about know your rights, which we went through, so I won't go through that right now with folks. But really having this part here, so having in mind, again, the documents you guys have to gather, what this conversation is going to look like with the family as well. the importance of what we're going to put in here. And really just having folks also practice is going to be a good thing. Practicing what it looks like, having to come in and grabbing these, right? And so, again, as mentioned, emergency contact information. Any lawyers or community organizations that the family has are being linked with, right? So having our lawyer information here is really important for our family members, knowing if we are working with a lawyer and also informing the lawyers if anything does happen. And a list of family members. Who's the first one? Who's the second one, third one, right? In our family unit. What is our emergency meeting place? Is it going to be at, you know, Mission Action at 938? At Lentier, is it going to be at our aunt's house in Daly City? whatever it may be, but really having those conversations and also practicing that with the kids and any young kids that you may have. Um, and then going through this chest checklist of information and documents as we're going through this, you guys know, um, just, just kind of the general documents that we have. I think for kids also having school IDs of the kids, having a picture of each family member, at least here. So we have, so you have a record of, of family member, current picture of the children as well. Um, And as we went through some other stuff, house keys, car keys, you know, logins to online systems, logins to online accounts, any assets that you may have, anything to help, you know, the folks who aren't technically the ones in charge of the house the whole time. This is going to be a great toolkit for them. So I'm going to stop sharing. And thank you guys for your time.

Thank you so much, Yesenia. We have a few questions for you. So before I start asking them, I just wanted to highlight what Anjali and our partner at SFUSD put in the Q&A, but it's really for everyone's information to update emergency contacts at your child's school, especially for elementary and middle school students. So I think that's a great reminder that I wanted to uplift. For our questions, The first one we got, Yesenia, is about the rapid response hotline. And the question is, I thought we could use the rapid response for emergency consults prior to an ICE or court appointment. Could you clarify if that is still possible?

So right now, what we consider emergency is anything within 30 days of your appointment. So if my appointment is... next month, February 28th, and I call today, we would consider that a possible for an emergency consult. So I would say anything that is within 30 days, With accompaniment to appointments and stuff like that, I know there are other organizations, Faith in Action, for example, that are supporting with that. It really does have to do with capacity. So the rapid response sign and the goal of the rapid response sign is for like those emergency responses. And so say ICE is there. And so that's what that we're there for. Someone was detained on the bus and by ICE. And so that's what we're there for. When it comes to Court appointments and stuff like that, it kind of gets into because of capacity. Again, we consider something within a 30-day scope of that appointment. If it's longer than that, then we are referring folks to one of our partner agencies.

Got it. Thank you for clarifying that. Another question is, does SF Island offer Know Your Rights workshops to organizations in the East Bay or only to orgs in SF? I know y'all are holding down a lot of presentations, but if you could address that, that would be great.

Yeah, right now I believe we're only doing San Francisco Know Your Rights presentation. I'm not sure if any partner agencies might have different contracts where they might do something outsourced. But in terms of the rapid response in SF Island, it's locally to San Francisco. But I do recommend calling the East Bay Rapid Response Lines because they do kind of have a similar network. And so there might be partners doing education there too. Absolutely.

All right. And many people do not know where to get their A number. Do you have any recommendations on how they can find it?

See, now I'm going to ask someone to tag in to help me in on this one. But I know, gosh, yeah, I'm going to have to ask someone to tag in for that one because I don't want to misinform folks.

Yeah, and we don't have any legal partners on our panelists now, so we can get back to folks via the listserv for some advice for folks that aren't able to find their A number. All right, and then this question is about showing your ID if you're apprehended by immigration enforcement, the advice being you don't have to present your ID. And the question is, you know, what happens if you don't present it? but you're being harassed or detained on the spot. Should you show your ID then? What can you say to prove that you understand that you don't, you don't have to show the ID? Do you have any advice in kind of that situation? I know it's kind of unprecedented times for responding to these things, but any advice? Yesenia?

Yeah, I think it's, it's such a crazy time that we have to assess each, each situation uniquely. Um, Our rights are our rights, right? And so kind of robotically, just kind of in a stance of like repeating it. But again, if they are detaining you, it's such a loopy place now that it's dangerous, right? So again, if I were Yesenia and I were being detained, I would continue saying that I am not going to present my name. This is Yesenia speaking for Yesenia. And that I'm not going to present my ID. And I do understand that Yesenia might get arrested and detained regardless of what my rights are. So going into those scary spaces like that, like I say, it's an individual situation for everyone and everyone has to make an assessment because maybe Yesenia has the ability of, you know, I don't have to go home tonight and my family's safe, but maybe I have a kid I have to go home and pick up at seven. And so we really have to unfortunately, assess each situation as this, but our rights are our rights. And that can't change right now. And then we have to keep pushing for our rights not to change right now.

Absolutely. Thank you for that, Yesenia. I do, we are needing to move on to our next presenter. And I do see that there are more questions. I think for folks that are asking if the slides will be shared out, yes, this recording will be shared out. If you're on the listserv, that's the fastest way you'll get it. We'll also be posting it on sf.gov slash immigrants. And as Yesenia mentioned, the Family Toolkit is on SF Island's website, so you can access it there. All right, so I think we are going to move on, but I just really want to appreciate, Yesenia, all of the information you provided. and the recap of Know Your Rights information at the top. And yeah, just thanks again. And you all got the email contact to follow up with any presentations or follow-up questions, so please do utilize that. And thanks again, Yesenia. All right, for our next speaker, I'm going to pass it back to my colleague Elena to introduce our next speaker.

Thank you again, Yesenia, especially for your on power over panic. And now we're really thankful for the San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment, particularly Director Nicole and Community Engagement Specialist Mandy Wu joining us today. Thank you both for being here. And we're really looking forward to hearing more about the multilingual digital toolkit your office offers in order to keep families safe while meeting financial obligations in cases of emergency. So again, thank you very much.

Great. Thanks for the introduction, Alina. And I just want to kick off, as many speakers have already, to express gratitude for the space here today and the opportunity to speak to you all about this important and really difficult topic right now. So I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Nicole Agbayani, again, the Director of the Office of Financial Empowerment. And I'm the pleasure to be joined today by Mandy New, who leads all of our community engagement efforts. And I'm sure you'll be seeing Mandy even more than me out in community soon. Mandy's just joined us a few weeks ago. So excited to have Mandy here today, too. So we have a few slides to share with some visuals about the resource that we're going to share. But just as Mandy's getting that up. provide just a little background. This is also around preparing for these emergencies. The slice that we are looking at from the OFE perspective is around preparing financially for emergencies. And so very similar to Yesenia, we have a toolkit that we've put together. This was built in partnership with OCEA. from the ground up and so I really appreciate OSCE's expertise and the pieces that went in here. It was a great collaboration and so we're excited to be able to share that. So next slide please. Really quickly, just a little bit about us. The Office of Financial Empowerment is housed under the umbrella of our treasurer's office here in San Francisco. We really focus on economic security and financial inclusion for all San Franciscans, but we spend the majority of our time and our capacity really focusing our efforts on supporting low-income families here in the city. Our day job is we operate a number of different programs for the city, our kindergarten to college program, free financial counseling that I'll speak about in a bit, and then access to banking programs. And we sit alongside a sister entity, the Financial Justice Project, that does a lot around waiving municipal fines and fees for community members as well. But what we really enjoy taking on are initiatives that are arising with upcoming issues where we can help to support community and provide that expertise. This is really one of the ways that the financial emergency preparedness planning project came to our desk. Next slide. Next one. Thanks, Mandy. So just to provide a little more background, actually, some of this will seem a little familiar from Yesenia's presentation as well. Really, for us, this emergency preparedness planning exercise is really about having a plan in place for when emergencies occur. So like Yesenia mentioned, you know, we developed this contemplating immigration-related emergencies. That was what our partnership with OCEA was built on. But really, this is a toolkit that can apply to a broad range of emergencies and is something that really, you know, like every family should have in place, whether it's a natural disaster or medical emergency that might come up. In addition to, of course, the immigration emergencies that we are so worried about right now. And really for us, this work is important because, you know, like we see on the slide, you know, emergencies can strike without warning. And so if folks have these kind of financial pieces in place and they're ducks in a row in this one area, they can at least feel a little bit of reduction of stress that it's one less thing for them to worry about when they're dealing with the emergency at hand. And so that's why we wanted to pull together this guidance. So if you forward to the next slide. So I just have a couple of slides here. I won't train on the specific details, but I basically want to take you through what the guide will include. So what we tried to do here was help to kind of give a basic checklist of what folks should be thinking about with regard to their finances so that they can try to have these things prepared and ready in advance. And it's pretty simple things around kind of trying to keep your money safe and then trying to think about protecting and accounting for your assets. So just to give an example, we have some simple steps around taking an inventory of your financial accounts. And then making a list of all of the bills that you pay and if finances will allow, for example, setting up automatic payments for those bills where you're able to, or checking with the banks that are the keepers of the financial accounts to see if there is... online or mobile banking access that is available abroad for those accounts that you have. Another kind of really important thing that our guide includes and helps folks to think through is this decision point around whether or not to and how to add a trusted family member or friend to have access to help them manage those accounts in the absence of family member who's the account owner. And so we help to demystify a little bit around what is an authorized user, for example, versus a joint user or an authorized signer. And we have information there to help folks understand those options before making those really kind of critical decisions and understanding then what are the legal implications of them signing over some access to these accounts. And then similarly on the asset and belonging side, it's really a lot around, similar to what we heard Yesenia say, around making inventories, right? So inventory of your assets and your belongings. Once again, going through the process of seeing if it's possible to designate co-owners or authorized users. We have a little bit of guidance in there about how to consider insurance, potentially homeowners insurance or renters insurance. And then thinking about disruptions to income with the next bullet point. We wanted to provide a different toolkit that we already have, which is helping folks to consider if they need to access short-term loan products. It's basically a compliment for how to shop for those. We link to that tool as well. Then for a much deeper guidance, we have links to vetted information that we've reviewed from non-profit partners. that can help to go a layer deeper if folks need to. And so all of this, I should have said at the beginning, that the toolkit itself is an online toolkit. We have it that way so that we can update it as we need to if new information is coming out. And so it's basically a very simple kind of a guide. You can see the table of contents on the right there in that visual. And then if we go to the next slide, I want to share an important feature is that it's translated into 12 languages. And so we wanted to be very usable for immigrant communities here in San Francisco. And so you can see right up at the top is the toggle to be able to adjust the languages on it. And then the next slide. And I recognize that, you know, especially after hearing the amazing resources that Yesenia presented and then now hearing, oh, we have to go a layer deeper and also think about finances. That is a lot to ask of families to have all of this in mind and kind of follow all these checklists and prepare all of this. And so I also wanted to share another resource out of our office, which is our San Francisco financial counseling program. This program provides free one-on-one financial counseling for anyone. You can see on the slide here, it's anyone who lives, works, or receives services in San Francisco. It's regardless of their status. And I bring this up in this presentation to say that if this feels like a lot, or folks are kind of going through our checklist and not quite sure what are the best options for their unique situation. This is a really perfect instance to schedule an appointment with one of our financial counselors and to have them kind of sit down and help families to go through and create this plan. And get all of their documentation in place, help to make those kind of updates to their accounts, little things like putting security freeze on their credit reports. All of these, our counselors can be really, really helpful with and help to just provide that guidance, particularly in the space of financial support. kind of activities, it can be hard to know and you don't want to mess up and make some changes that might have implications down the line. And so that's exactly the type of thing that our counselors are here to do. And it should say on this slide already, but in addition to offering service in English, we have counselors that are fluent in Spanish and Mandarin and then use a language line to be able to provide any other kind of in-language counseling that folks are in need of. So thank you. I saw that the link to counseling was just posted. I have one other piece and then I'm happy to take any questions on the emergency preparedness planning. I did want to just put in a little plug, switching gears a bit to share. Also out of our office, we have been doing some work, a very new kind of body of work for us. which is in response to proliferating scams and frauds that I'm sure all of us have these types of text messages in our cell phones right now that we get maybe multiple times a day, especially in the age of AI. They're just proliferating at kind of an incredible clip that it's hard to stay on top of things. And so as a treasurer's office, we thought, you know, it's important for us to kind of step up and take a role in helping San Franciscans to feel safe and feel protected and feel kind of empowered in this new world where we have so many scams and frauds that we're coming across every single day. And so it's a very new project for us that we're wanting to take on where we'll help to identify scams that are new that are coming up, put out alerts for the public. We want to start to do a lot more kind of proactive education for community to protect against scams and to kind of get know what is out there. And, you know, we already actually, I mean, unfortunately, it's a lot of the work that our financial counselors do already can be to help to remediate when folks have already fallen victim to a scam and are needing to take a look at remediation for their finances. So we want to put all that together and, you know, provide this kind of new service for San Franciscans. And as we've been building out, the work is new and it's early for us, but as we've been building this out and learning more about the space, we're recognizing that there's specific cross sections of San Francisco that are more vulnerable and victimized with more frequency than others. And so we've decided as we're building up the work that we want to put particular emphasis in our efforts on these particular communities, immigrant communities being one, as well as seniors and our youth population. And so I share this because one of our first steps that we want to take with this new work is to do some community listening. You know, our goal here is really to understand community members' experiences of grappling with fraud and scams right now and And but then also to learn from community, you know, if you are to hear from your local government that's trying to get out preventative messages to you in a world where it's hard to trust anything that you're receiving, what would be those really trusted and accessible channels for information so that we can really build up what this looks like from those foundation of community learning? And so I bring it to this group to say, you know, as we're working with community members and setting up these listening sessions, you know, if you all are hearing from the folks that you're working with, that they are having to deal with a lot of these scams and frauds, and you feel like you'd want us to set up a listening session with your group or with community members that you work with, we would love to partner on that. And so I've, I don't want to create too much work for Mandy here, but the core reason for Mandy to be here is that she's going to be leading on actually both of these efforts. Mandy will be leading the community listening for our stop scams efforts. And then as well as, you know, if folks would like us to come out and do presentations on the financial emergency preparedness planning toolkit, Mandy will be leading on that effort as well. And so this is almost kind of like a teaser. If folks are interested in working with Mandy on either of those things in a deeper way. And so we'll make sure to put her email in the chat. And, you know, once again, really grateful for the space and the time and happy to answer any questions and looking forward to future partnership on these areas.

Thanks so much, Nicole. And yes, folks, please do reach out to Mandy if you're interested in in providing input and collaborating on this exciting new initiative to meet the need of addressing these scams. So thank you both for your presentation. We do have one, I think a couple of questions. And is this just for San Francisco or?

Oh, for the last piece you shared. Oh, for the scams and fraud? We'll be focusing, like, for example, the community listening pieces. All of that is going to be rooted in San Francisco. But I think one of the things that we have thought about, we kind of have a multi-year plan, is that, you know, Scams obviously don't have borders, and we think that there's kind of a role that local government can carve out to serve their citizens. And so with that, we want to create replicable strategies that other local governments can take on as well. And then I should say on the financial counseling piece, I know with our eligibility, we say anyone who lives, works or receives services in San Francisco, we have a very, very broad way of thinking about that, I would say. So even if folks are community members that are engaged with any of your organizations and you're based out of San Francisco, we would say like we welcome you as a client. So I don't want folks to feel worried about kind of scheduling those appointments for eligibility.

Absolutely. Thanks for clarifying. And we just have one question. Could you provide a little bit more information about BankOn for folks?

Oh, sure, sure, sure. BankOn is actually one of our oldest programs. It's 21 years old at this point. And it provides access to safe and affordable bank accounts for San Franciscans. Basically, what we do is we partner with, right now, 11 different financial institutions that And really what BankOn is, is a set of standards that our office has developed that says we want accounts that are safe, that are affordable. For example, no hidden fees hitting folks, no overdraft hitting them and surprising them. We want accounts that are going to be able to be opened if folks do not have a traditional ID, but perhaps have an alternative ID. If folks have had negative banking history in the past, we want that to not be a barrier to them accessing bank accounts now. And so what we did is we have all of these standards and we have financial institutions basically say apply, propose specific accounts, and then we certify those accounts. And so the link that was shared in the chat lists all of the accounts and then all of the criteria too. So if you're working with, for example, a client who wants to be banked, but they only have a specific type of ID, you can look already to say this account with this financial institution, they can open that one, for example, with a San Francisco City ID. And so it's a really great program. I'm excited that we continue to have financial institutions that sign up for those accounts today. And similar to our others, you know, they're certified through San Francisco, but the accounts, many of them are with national banks. And so as long as you know the name of the account, clients can access those from other areas as well.

Excellent. Thank you all so much, Nicole and Mandy. I hope folks continue to reach out and connect on these resources. And thanks again for being here today.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Absolutely. So I'm going to pass it back to my colleague, Elena, to introduce our final speaker.

Hello, we are now grateful to introduce Doris Vasquez-Clavo, Programs Manager with Mission Asset Fund, which is a fund that provides support to families impacted by immigration enforcement and immigration fee assistance. Again, thank you so much, Doris.

Thank you, Elena, and thank you everyone for having me. Thank you for all the resources that have been provided and shared. I value the work that each of you are doing. Like Elena mentioned, my name is Doris Vasquez Clavel. I'm the program manager at Mission Asset Fund. For those of you that are not very familiar with Mission Asset Fund, we are a nonprofit organization located in the Mission District. We are on a mission to help low-income and immigrant communities become visible, active, and successful in their financial lives. And over this past 17 years, we have funded more than 16,000 loans to people across the country, helping them increase credit scores, pay down debt, and save for important goals like becoming a homeowner, a business owner, or a U.S. citizen. through the programs that MAF provides, like lending circles, immigration loans, business loans. And today I'm here to talk about the ALMO program. I'm going to be sharing my screen with you all. So give me a few seconds to share my screen. Great. Can everyone see my screen? Yes. Thank you so much. So what is the Alma program? We launched the Alma program in May of 2025, and this program is to support families facing financial hardship after the detention or deportation of a primary income earner in their household. Trualma families will receive Well, families will receive access to direct cash assistance, financial services, and community support to help them gain assistance and stability during this immigration emergency. So the financial support that families will receive will be a grant through a virtual card to cover any essential expenses like rent or groceries. During the coach, we also provide coaching, a financial coaching session with them as well as financial education. And this empowers the person applying to become knowledgeable within the financial system in this country. They will get personalized coaching and resources, including access to community-focused workshops that support their financial lives. We also connect those individuals with different organizations so that they can benefit from other resources through our partner organizations. And now I'm going to go over the Alma program application and what the requirements are. So anybody, again, whose main income earner in the household has been detained, they can apply if they're 18 years or older. And we provide the cash assistance for them. the application process is an individual will need to submit their pre-application through MAF's website. And I believe that Jamie will be helping me share those links with you all to submit a pre-application. But if not, also you can go to the website and learn a little bit about who MAF is, the work that we're doing, and also share with your colleagues or anybody that works directly with families about this important resource that would be so helpful. So this is a call of action that I'm asking from everybody that's within this webinar. Submitting a pre-application will require the person to answer a few questions. Once that application gets submitted, it gives that flag to the team who will be doing a thorough review. of the application and based on the eligibility, they will be receiving a link to submit a full application. Once that full application gets submitted, we will approve it and a few days later they will be receiving the grant so that they can use it as they need for the purposes that I mentioned. Here's a QR code that I'll be keeping on the screen for a few seconds so that people can encourage families to apply to the Alma program. And I'll open it up for questions now if there is any. And also, sorry, Jamie, I'll be sharing also the way that you can stay connected with MAF providing the link to our website, the toll-free number, the email where inquiries can be sent, and also our social media channels.

Excellent. Thank you, Doris. I've just dropped in some links as well for folks to pre-apply and get more information about that. the alma fund um but i'll give folks a second to see if we have any questions okay um the question i see doris is is the alma fund through math only available to those living in san francisco so the alma funds are accessible to anybody living within san francisco the san mateo county alameda contra costa and anybody that has a significant connection to san francisco Great, thanks for clarifying. Okay. I don't see any other questions, so thank you again for sharing this link for the pre-application. If folks were here back in September, we also heard from Doris about the Alma Fund, so this pre-application is an exciting opportunity for folks to get connected directly with these emergency funds.

Yeah, and one important point to make, Jamie, if there are families that don't feel comfortable doing the application online, you know, they can always visit our office. We're here from 8.30 to 5 p.m. And our staff is happy to assist anybody with drop-in and application assistance or questions or any increase, you know, that there might be.

That's a great offer. And we do have a couple more questions that came in around documentation for the application. One is what if families are having issues providing documentation and related, what kind of documents are needed to be proof of head of household?

Yeah, so what we are going to be requesting is address verification for the person that's applying and the person that was detained, so a shared address document. And also, we will be asking for the A number. If there is a family that is for In case they can't provide those requirements, we are always willing to work around other requirements, but everything is case by case. So, you know, I would recommend that the pre-application gets approved, and then we will follow up accordingly based on the requirements that we're providing.

All right. Thanks, Doris. I hope folks...

found this presentation helpful and can get folks connected to these funds that need them. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

All right. Great. Well, thank you, everyone, for participating in today's SF Immigrant Forum. We heard from three really great speakers with a lot of resources and information and opportunities to get our immigrant community members prepared for emergencies. As was mentioned by our speakers, we know it's a lot to ask of folks to prepare all of this information and get things ready, but we really encourage you as service providers to support and encourage so our communities can be as prepared as possible, know the resources available, and really do appreciate all the participation in the Q&A today. As a reminder, our next forum meeting will be two months from now in March on the 25th. I'm going to drop a link to the event page. The topic, again, will be announced pretty soon once we've finalized some speakers, but you can register now just to ensure that you have that link in your inbox. And lastly, we will be sending out the recording and additional information via the listserv in the next week. And you can always watch the recording on OCIA's YouTube, which I've been sharing the link in the chat, or accessible via sf.gov slash immigrants. And I also want to thank our colleagues at the Human Services Agency, Andy and Christy at the Department of Public Health for sharing important updates about what's going on in the city at the top of the meeting. And again, a big thanks to all of our speakers and all of our attendees. Please continue to use the listserv to share resources in the interim, but hope to see you at the next meeting on March 25th. Thanks, everyone, and have a good rest of your day.