El Tímpano Launches New Immigration Newsletter for Bay Area

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It’s Friday, the last day of The Latino Newsletter’s 39th week. We are just $650 away from hitting our 2025 Winter Pledge goal of $4,000, so here’s hoping the weekend treats us well. Also, some exciting news: our Bluesky profile has already surpassed 4,400 followers, bringing our total social media following to more than 14,000 and growing.

Part of my motivation for founding The Latino Newsletter was to feature the work of other outlets serving local Latino communities. Last month, the fabulous team at El Tímpano announced it would publish a newsletter called The Weekly Dispatch, which is described as “community-powered immigration news from the Bay Area.”

This week, I contacted Erica Hellerstein, El Tímpano’s senior immigration, labor, and economics reporter, with a few questions about the newsletter, which is published every Friday.

Julio Ricardo Varela: Why launch this newsletter now in 2025?

Erica Hellerstein: After the election, we knew we needed a way to stay in regular conversation with our audience about how the Trump administration’s immigration policies are affecting our community. The challenge is that we’re a small (but mighty) newsroom. We don’t have the capacity to publish high volumes of reporting on immigration policy while also focusing on the in-depth investigative work that’s at the core of what we do.

This newsletter felt like the right solution: a way to stay on top of the week’s biggest immigration news, filter it through a Bay Area lens, and engage with our audience without sacrificing the long-form, accountability-driven reporting that defines our work.

We also saw a gap in the local newsletter ecosystem. There are plenty of great Bay Area political newsletters and strong national immigration newsletters, but nothing locally that focuses specifically on the local impact of the administration’s immigration policies. Given our deep connection with immigrant communities, it felt like an opportunity we were uniquely positioned to take on. We’re only three editions in, but the response has been incredibly encouraging. People are engaging, sharing their own insights, and helping shape the direction of our coverage.

JRV: How does this fit into El Tímpano’s broader strategy?

EH: At El Tímpano, we prioritize meeting our audience where they are. And right now, newsletters are one of the ways people —especially engaged Bay Area residents— are consuming news. Our audience includes policymakers, nonprofit leaders, educators, organizers, members of the immigrant community. People who are invested in immigration from all sorts of angles.

We also know there’s a real appetite for reporting that tracks the impact of federal immigration policies at a local level. By featuring analysis, original reporting, and service journalism, this newsletter is a natural extension of our work. It’s a way to deepen our relationship with our audience, reach new community members and ensure our readers have the information they need.

JRV: What’s happening in local journalism right now, and how does your newsletter help address that?

EH: It’s no secret that local journalism is in crisis. Newsroom closures over the past decade have been staggering, and the loss of local outlets means fewer reporters on the ground covering the issues that impact communities most directly.

I’ve worked in local, state, national, and international news, and I can say from experience: local journalism is a different beast. You’re not parachuting in. You’re part of the community. That closeness shapes the reporting in a way national coverage just fundamentally can’t because you have a direct stake in what happens in your community.

Nonprofit news has done an incredible job of filling the void left by the shuttering of local media. I see this newsletter as an extension of what El Tímpano was built to do: amplify the voices and stories of the Bay Area’s Latino and Mayan immigrant communities.

JRV: What are some early successes with this newsletter?

EA: I love that this newsletter highlights the full range of our newsroom’s approach to community-powered reporting. It features my own immigration analysis, our investigative and accountability journalism, our cultural reporting, and our service journalism.

We also include direct community input. Every edition includes voices and perspectives from Latino and Mayan immigrants in the Bay Area, shared with us via text messaging. It also includes resource guides linked to the newsletter’s focus. This week’s newsletter, for example, is all about Medi-Cal, and we included a resource guide containing information about how to enroll in the program.

This mix of reporting, service journalism, outreach and community engagement is what makes our approach unique, and I’m excited to keep building on it.

JRV: How do you define success for this newsletter?

EA: We’re only three editions in, so I’m still getting into the rhythm of producing a weekly newsletter alongside my reporting. But already, success looks like people fully immersing themselves in the content of the newsletter and engaging with what I’m writing.

For example, last week, someone wrote in with additional data on unaccompanied minors—information I hadn’t encountered yet, but that could shape future reporting. I hope to see more of that kind of back-and-forth, and it is where a huge part of the value-add for me as a journalist lies. I don’t just want this to be a one-way street in which I inform the community.

I want the community to inform me, too.

JRV: What are your plans for the newsletter this year? Any obstacles?

EA: My goal is to keep producing this weekly deep dive into the Trump administration’s immigration policies with a Bay Area focus, while also incorporating original reporting. In both this and last week’s editions, I shared data I obtained and analyzed from government sources about Bay Area counties. The reason I trawled through those government databases was because I thought surfacing that information had real value for members of our community. I want to keep publishing that kind of information—data that’s useful, relevant, and often overlooked.

The biggest challenge? Time. Balancing a weekly newsletter with my other reporting responsibilities as an immigration, labor and economics reporter in the Trump era is tough. There’s just not enough hours in the day to do the work that I want to do, and I’m trying to accept that. But I’m figuring that out as I go. If I discover how to add more hours to the day, I’ll let you know!

JRV: How can people follow and support your newsletter?

EW: You can subscribe here. You can read past editions here.

You can also share it with anyone in your network who might be interested. The more people engage with it, the stronger this community of reporting and conversation will become.

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What We’re Reading

NRCC Deletes Espaillat Post: On Friday afternoon, POLITICO reported that the “House GOP's campaign arm deleted a post on X calling Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York an ‘illegal immigrant,’ following a backlash on social media and strong condemnation from Espaillat's fellow Democrats.”

Before the deletion, the Congressional Tri-Caucus of the Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) issued a joint statement condemning the original post.

Puerto Rico and Trump: Over at DailyMail.com, Donald Trump “is being lobbied to make Puerto Rico an independent nation and save American taxpayers $617.8 billion.”

“At least two congressional offices are in possession of a seven-page draft ‘executive order’ on how the U.S. can help the island territory transition to independence,” the story says. “One individual familiar with the document's origins said at least two members of Congress have a copy of the draft, which DailyMail.com has obtained and reviewed.”

Puerto Rico’s Federal Affairs Administration, an official part of the island’s government, claimed the Daily Mail story was “fake news.”

PRFAA Executive Director Gabriella Boffelli wrote in an official letter that there is “no evidence at all to support such allegations.”

“Any insinuation of a secret plan to force independence for Puerto Rico is completely false and only serves to misinform and deviate attention from the real problem: our status,” Boffelli added.

About the Author

Julio Ricardo Varela is the founder and publisher of The Latino Newsletter.

And now a word from today’s sponsor. (Full disclosure: The Latino Newsletter makes $2 for anyone who clicks on the Authory ad. Based on our historical open rates, if 60% of you click on the link in the ad, that would generate significant revenue for just one newsletter post. Think of it as a way to support us without having to donate. FYI, I also use Authory for my professional portfolio.)

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