The responses given below reflect planning before the impact of COVID-19. Many of these strategies and plans are being adapted to provide support while also protecting the health of communities.

Thousands of households have received initial invitations to respond to the 2020 census. That hasn’t slowed the promotional efforts of CLINIC affiliates, encouraging their communities’ participation. 

We had the opportunity to connect with Catholic Charities of Albuquerque, Opening Doors International Services, Inc. and Immigration and American Citizenship Organization to learn about their strategies to ensure everyone gets counted.

Carolina Romero, programmatic outreach liaison of Catholic Charities of Albuquerque, which serves communities in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico:

• What strategies and methods are you using to help motivate immigrants in your community to participate in the census?

• We talk about the census with clients, the majority of whom are Spanish speakers. We also have our computer lab available for people to use. We are working in collaboration with several organizations and organizing census events with volunteers who speak other languages to assist folks.

• Are you working with other organizations or local government as part of your efforts?

• Yes. We received a grant to work with hard-to-count communities that are Arabic, Farsi, Dari, and Pashto speakers. We are co-organizing events and promoting small events, and even house events as necessary.

• What are some challenges that your organization and community face in getting immigrant participation in the census, what are your ideas for overcoming these challenges?

• There is fear to complete the census and give away their information. However, we hope to know more as people come and participate in these events. We also explain that it’s better to answer the census before May 14th, otherwise census workers will come to their doors.

• Learn more about Catholic Charities of Albuquerque and their efforts to promote the 2020 census

Andrés Pacheco, executive director at Opening Doors International Services, Inc., in Denton, Texas:

• What strategies and methods are you using to help motivate immigrants in your community to participate in the census?

• We are part of a coalition, North Texas Immigration and Education Table, and we would have monthly meetings to get conversations around the census going, but at the beginning of the year is when we really began to ramp up our efforts, so we started a complete count committee for Denton. Some strategies that have been helpful for us include combining the topic of the census with other topics. For example, we discuss the census when we are assisting clients with their immigration cases. The census runs through July, so now is the time to start. It is not too late.

• Are you working with other organizations or local government as part of your effort?

• We are a smaller organization, so we really needed to collaborate with an organization who has communication power. We teamed up with the school system as well as congregations, and other smaller organizations to help spread the word. We have been able to set up events at the schools and had a community event at Denton Square, where we invited faith leaders. We are hoping that through this event, they are able to see how it works and provide similar events at their congregations.

• What are some challenges that your organization and community face in getting immigrant participation in the census, what are your ideas for overcoming these challenges?

• We have found that community members appear to not be interested in the census, which could be influenced by fear. But we have found that by preparing community leaders to discuss the census with community members, it’s less intimidating as opposed to the federal government. We have also found to be more successful when doing census presentations with smaller groups than in large mega-events. 

• Learn more about Opening Doors International Services, Inc.

Last but not least, Arely Hernandez, community engagement coordinator at Immigration and American Citizenship Organization in Passaic, New Jersey:

• What strategies and methods are you using to help motivate immigrants in your community to participate in the census?

• The objective of our work is to gradually create awareness, desire and interest in the 2020 census in the hard-to-count population in the city of Passaic. Strategies for the execution of the external activities that our organization will follow is the AIDA framework (Attention – Interest – Desire – Action). We want to capture the attention, interest and desire of the target population, and increasingly move them to personal action during Census Day (April 1, 2020). Methods employed are made of multiple channels, such as face-to-face interactions, emails, phone texts , social media posts, website articles, and an online and paper magazine publication. As well as informational events, such advocating including all immigrant HTC wards, in Passaic County, to be trained as census ambassadors, to guarantee that individual action is taken on Census Day on April 1, 2020.

• Are you working with other organizations or local government as part of your effort?

• Partners are critical to the success of a complete and accurate count in 2020. IACO received a grant from the Department of State Complete Count Commission. We are working together in conjunction with the Passaic County Complete Count Committee, City of Passaic Complete Count Committee, the recruiting assistant U.S. Census Bureau and partnership specialist from the New York Regional Census Center. We have also provided the following:

• • Staff training by the partnership specialist from the New York Regional Census Center. Fifteen bilingual (English and Spanish) individuals received a training to become census advocates and to receive all relevant information about the efforts to be conducted and guarantee that throughout the organization the message is consistently delivered in all the office face-to-face interactions with the members of the community. Considering that the organization interacts with 200 community families per month in connection with its assistance programs, the staff will incorporate information about each stage in the day-to-day interaction with the community, along with census materials, and it will keep this effort throughout the duration of the project.
  • Magazine online/hard copy: The magazine of the organization: La Guía del Inmigrante will be used to feature the benefits of the census data for the community, and it will be delivered to the target population in printed and digital format/online magazine. This effort will be supported with feature articles in the website of the organization and posts in its social network accounts for both IACO and Asistencia Para Seniores websites and social media accounts.
  • Text messages: Text messages will be sent four times to the 12,000 IACO members about the census.
  • Census ambassador advocate: Ambassador attendees of the Passaic County Complete Count Committee gathered representatives from the HTC areas to attend trainings. Representatives from the Bengali community, 1st Ward Passaic Mexican community, 6th Ward Paterson, and Polish American Organization from 1st Ward Passaic.
  • Advocate for community partners to devote three days to counting people who are experiencing homelessness in New Jersey, including the Aging Out youth and immigrant community. IACO follows up with the New York regional census center’s partner specialist regarding outreach and coordination with local census offices, partners, shelter directors, service providers, and others. We are advocating and working to count people who are in shelters, people at soup kitchens and mobile food vans, and those in non-sheltered, outdoor locations, such as tent encampments and on the streets.
• What are some challenges that your organization and community face in getting immigrant participation in the census? What are your ideas for overcoming these challenges?

• These sectors of the population have limited English proficiency, temporary or no legal immigration status, and low education and income level. Some of them distrust the authorities, the official information, and the census in particular, given the controversy regarding the citizenship question. As observed by Levitt, "obtaining the cooperation of a suspicious group and fearful population would be impossible if the group being counted perceived any possibility of the information being used against them." The organization, being community-based since its inception, has been cultivating the trust of its members and of the general community for almost 20 years, in the exercise of programs developed to assist, provide advice and inform them according to its mission. Due to the sensitive area in which the organization operates, centered on immigration advice, the organization enjoys the privilege and responsibility of being a reliable source of information for its members, of which 6,400 members are domiciled in the city of Passaic, which account to almost a third of its 19,530 households.

• In addition, a Census Bureau metric, called a low response score, classifies Passaic as “hard to count” based on a variety of factors. For example, the city has a lot of renters — mobile residents mean they’re harder to track down -- and a large immigrant community. Passaic is a city where we find many people who don’t speak English at home and many of these tracts have poor access to the internet.

• Learn more about IACO’s “La Guía del Inmigrante” magazine

Amid the corona virus pandemic, the Census Bureau encourages people to fill out their forms online. The agency is closely watching developments and adapting its plans to reflect guidance from federal, state and local health authorities. Check 2020census.gov for updates.