City of Spokane launches ‘Know Your Rights’ webpage to assist immigrant communities

Amid a nationwide bolstering of federal immigration enforcement, the city of Spokane wants to help immigrant residents understand their rights.

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown’s office issued a news release Friday announcing a new webpage directed at informing the Lilac City’s immigrant and refugee residents of the constitutional rights afforded everyone, regardless of their immigration status.

“Our city is stronger because of the diversity of people who call Spokane home,” Brown said in the release. “This new website is just one way we are working to ensure that everyone, no matter where they come from, has access to the support they need to feel safe.”

City spokeswoman Erin Hut said the webpage came about from months of meetings Brown and Jerrall Haynes, director of the city’s office of Civil Rights, equity, and inclusion, have had with local advocacy groups and the communities they serve.

“It was just some folks who are involved in that community who said, you know, this would be a really helpful resource,” Hut said.

The rundown of rights comes in the form of small, red slips often referred to as “red cards,” a popular way to disseminate information to immigrant and refugee communities started by the national nonprofit the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in 2007.

Spokane’s “Know Your Rights” webpage includes ILRC cards in 20 different languages, including Chinese, Spanish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese – some of the region’s largest immigrant communities. Hut said the website itself can be translated into several languages courtesy of the city’s language access program, and there is a plan to add a guide to the page on how to do so in the coming days.

For those needing to translate the page in the meantime, Hut advised visitors to look in their browser settings while the page is open for a “translate” button. The function works throughout the city’s website, she said.

“It’s something that’s fairly new, and so it’s not totally perfect, but there’s more languages there than you can probably even think of,” Hut said.

The page also includes information on how organizations and individuals can use the cards, as well as contact information for a number of groups providing resources and legal assistance to immigrants, refugees and their families. Hut said the city plans to update the page with local events and additional community resources in the months to come.

“This effort is about dignity and inclusion,” Haynes said in a written statement. “We want every resident in Spokane to feel supported and empowered to exercise their rights.”