PVP has been working over the past year on a campaign to improve safety for the immigrant community. Through this work, we have found that immigrants and Spanish language speakers often are unable to get police protection because they cannot reach interpreters when they call 911 or when officers show up on the streets.

Meetings with Police Commissioner Fitchet lead to a commitment to work with PVP to resolve these problems. But police action has been slow. In a step towards education PVP members about this issue and towards expanding involvement, the Immigrant Organizing Committee meetings with PVP member organizations. Leaders from the immigrant community are traveling around to explain about their community and about the safety issues people face. Through these meetings, PVP will collect more stories about language access problems with the police. PVP will bring a larger presence to the police department and the city to develop a policy or protocol that will ensure language access for public safety.