Protecting Baltimore County as a Home for All

John F. Kennedy once said, “Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life… We are a nation of immigrants.” Baltimore County is no exception to this reality of the country. We should be proud that our nation has long been a beacon of hope for, as George Washington once put it, “not only the opulent and respected stranger but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions.” 

There has never been a point in the history of this land in which there were no immigrants; that is certainly true in the last 400 years of its history. Yet we live in a time of fear and misinformation; a time of other-isms that threaten the very fabric of our nation and our community. 

It is times like these that we must lean into our shared history and shared values. We must find compassion and strength in each other. And we must protect our communities with every power we have, for we are all one community, one county. 

Safeguarding Immigrant Rights

The current administration’s partnership with ICE undermines community safety and erodes trust between residents and law enforcement. We cannot allow policies that make families afraid to call for help or report a crime. 

We stand by those demanding action today, including: 

1. Emergency public hearings with the County Executive, Police Department leadership, and Corrections leadership; and 
2. A Council resolution terminating this agreement. 

If the current administration fails to take action before the election, a Stewart Administration commits to terminating this agreement and codifying CE Olszewski’s 2017 executive order so that Baltimore County law enforcement resources are never used for illegal federal actions. 

Support Hispanic & Immigrant Neighbors

Hispanic and Latino residents make up about 7.2% of Baltimore County’s population, and immigrants overall account for 12% — the fastest-growing segment of our community. Yet in extensive surveys by the Baltimore County New American Taskforce, listening sessions revealed a systemic failure: resources and services exist, but immigrants cannot locate them. This shows that services are scattered across different agencies, making them hard to navigate, poorly coordinated and difficult to access in multiple languages.

Our immigrant population is the backbone of our economy and society but county government has failed to act like it.

It’s time we change that: 

• Office of Immigrant Affairs: Create a dedicated office reporting to the County Executive that serves as the county’s primary institutional vehicle for immigrant integration and inclusion. Its mandate is threefold: 
  • coordinate fragmented county services to ensure immigrants can access resources; 
  • eliminate barriers to participation in civic, economic, and social life; 
  • ensure that the county government is responsive to the needs and contributions of the immigrant population.

The new office would drive several critical programs for Baltimore County’s immigrant community, including:

• One County, Many Voices: Establish a countywide language access program by conducting a four-factor analysis to determine service needs, establish interpretation and translation standards and mandate staff training across all county agencies and cultures, including those often overlooked, such as Urdu and Arabic.
• Community Navigation and Resource Hub Program. Open hub locations at Baltimore County Public Library branches and CBOs staffed by bilingual community navigators trained to connect residents with healthcare, housing, workforce and legal services. Navigators conduct intake, provide warm handoffs and track outcomes. 
• Healthcare Access and Wellness Program. Partner with health care organizations and the Department of Health to standardize interpretation services across county health systems in the top languages. The program would also recruit and train Community Health Ambassadors to conduct outreach in immigrant neighborhoods, workplaces and faith organizations. 
• Education Liaison and Support Program. Work with Baltimore County Public Schools to expand ESOL staffing, hire multilingual counselors and translate all parent communications thus moving towards eliminating student-as-translator practices. As discussed in the education page, community schools are a vital avenue for providing wraparound services for our immigrant communities, who are too often living in fear. We must provide services to these residents where they are by boosting coordination with BCPS and community groups.
• Workforce Development and Economic Opportunity Program. In coordination with the new Jobs Department, deploy a Mobile Career Program to high-immigrant neighborhoods, libraries and faith organizations, offering job training, resume assistance and employer connections while opening opportunities for entrepreneurship support. 
• Housing Stability Program. Offer multilingual homebuyer education workshops through community partners which connect eligible households to down-payment assistance and financing resources as well as renter education resources focused on tenant rights and lease negotiation. 
• Public Safety Partnership Program. Work with Baltimore County Police provide mandatory cultural competency training for police and public safety officers in partnership with community-based organizations while exploring programs such as bias incident reporting. Facilitate quarterly community listening sessions between police leadership and immigrant community members while coordinating recruitment efforts to increase multilingual public safety officers in high-immigrant neighborhoods.
• Cultural Visibility and Community Belonging Program. Host an annual Welcoming Week featuring cultural festivals, panel discussions and film screenings and integrate immigrant art and historical narratives into public government spaces.
  

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A County that Shows Up for All

Baltimore County can be the place where immigrants don’t have to fight the system to contribute to it. We can be the place where a refugee family finds not just shelter, but a path to stability and belonging. We can be a county that understands that our strength lies not in the fear of difference, but in the wisdom of unity.

That is the choice before us. And the time to make it is now.