- Home
- About GCIR
- Membership
- Programs
- About Immigration
- Immigrant Integration
- Publications
- Nonprofits
Arizona's passage of sweeping anti-immigrant legislation has far-reaching implications for immigrant communities - and raised the stakes for comprehensive immigration reform. State and local police in Arizona will soon be required to check the immigration status of anyone suspected of lacking legal papers - and arrest those who cannot provide proper documentation.
What's the potential impact of this legislation on immigrants in Arizona; what other states may follow suit; and how does it all figure into the national debate? Join our next webinar and learn who is behind these efforts and what local and state immigrant rights organizations are doing in response. Discuss how their mobilizing, organizing and advocacy are crucial to shaping the local, state and national immigration debate. And hear the latest developments on the national push for comprehensive immigration reform.
Moderator:
Speakers:
Registration:
To register for this policy update, please visit GCIR's program registration page.
The Casey Foundation supported Appleseed in developing a manual that helps protect children and family assets when immigrants are deported. Nearly 5 million children are living in families at risk of separation due to increased immigration enforcement. When these working parents are deported, their U.S.-born children often remain here. The manual helps providers counsel their clients on issues such as establishing child custody, closing a bank account and transferring assets into their children's names. The Mexican government has translated the guide into Spanish and is distributing it through its network of consulates in the United States and Mexico.
Following up on the 2010 Council on Foundations conference in Denver, CO, GCIR's research and program associate, Vanessa Cedeño, reflects on philanthropy's role in creating welcoming communities. Read her blog post at RE:Philanthropy.
In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform at the national level, state governments continue to introduce and pass legislation and resolutions addressing immigration and refugee issues. The National Conference of State Legislatures captures the number of bills and resolutions introduced and passed as well as the issues they address on a quarterly basis. This report, focused on the first quarter of 2010, finds a comparable amount of activity to 2009 in state legislatures on the topic of immigration. Of the enacted laws, the majority focused on education, employment, identification/driver’s licenses, law enforcement and resolutions.
More than 5 million children living in the United States today have at least one parent who is an undocumented immigrant. This policy brief analyzes the impact of immigration enforcement on these children and state child welfare agencies. It finds that current policies put children at risk of losing a parent and place unnecessary strain on the child welfare system. It recommends reforms to improve child and family well-being while enforcing immigration law.
This report examines the consequences of parental arrest, detention, and deportation on 190 children in 85 families in six locations across the country. Building on our 2007 report Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America’s Children, the current study documents the effects on these children after their parents were arrested in worksite raids, raids on their homes, or operations by local police officers. We researched impacts on children in the days and weeks after parental arrests, in the intermediate and long term while parents were detained or contested their deportation, and in some cases, after parents were deported.
This report examines each stage of the immigration removal adjudication system and makes some 60 recommendations for incremental and systemic reform. Designed as a tool for policymakers considering legislative and administrative changes to the immigration system, the study identifies concerns ranging from internal Department of Homeland Security practices to systemic weaknesses within the court’s current structure.
As many as 200,000 Haitian immigrants already in the United States could apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) as a result of the devastating January 12 earthquake in Haiti. Securing TPS would allow them to work and remain in the United States for 18 months and send home remittances that are critical for relief and rebuilding efforts. Indeed, remittances to the island nation before the earthquake totaled nearly $2 billion annually. Haitian immigrants have a 180-day window to file for TPS, but accessing affordable legal services and accurate information is a challenge.
Join GCIR members and other funding colleagues for a teleconference with experienced advocates, funders, and legal services providers to learn about the short- and long-term needs for legal services, fraud prevention, and policy advocacy for the Haitian community. Understand the role that funders could play stateside to support the relief and rebuilding effort.
To register click here.
Please note registration for this program is open for staff and trustees of grantmaking organizations only.
As the immigration debate continues, the guestworker program continues to be one of the most contentious part of any effort to move federal comprehensive immigration reform. Many advocates now characterize guestworkers as “indentured.” But business leaders and numerous elected officials say anything short of expanding the program is a deal breaker: You can’t have federal reform without a temporary worker program.
The voices missing from the debate have been guestworkers themselves. Until recently, they’ve been invisible, working across the United States without access to direct participation in the rancorous policy debate about them. In the last three years, the guestworkers of the post-Katrina Gulf Coast have changed that. Members of the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity (a project of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice) have run campaigns across the South, winning a place at the table in the ongoing debate.
One group of workers in particular launched a heroic campaign to expose the realities of the guestworker program and promote an alternative vision. Indian workers trafficked to the US Gulf Coast after Katrina escaped labor camps in 2008. They embarked on a civil rights journey, travelling by foot from New Orleans to Washington, D.C., to bring the guestworker reality to the attention of Congress. Along the way, they built relationships with African-American communities. They became the first H2B workers to testify in Congress and won broad support from elected officials, clergy, civil rights leaders, and unions. They also faced severe retaliation from immigration authorities—and will launch a new phase of their campaign in the coming weeks to expose misconduct by authorities in the Department of Homeland Security.
Firelight Media, an award-winning New York City-based documentary production firm, produced a film highlighting their courageous campaign. The film focuses on the explicit connections and collaborations between the Indian guestworkers and the post-Katrina African-American community. This presentation and discussion will start with a viewing of the short film. The presentation will feature representatives of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice and members of the Alliance of Guestworkers.
Lunch will be served.
A Philanthropy New York Members Briefing presented by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Public Interest Projects, the Ford Foundation, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, the Open Society Institute, Unbound Philanthropy, and Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock.
REGISTRATION:
NYRAG members: Please log in to register yourself or a colleague online by clicking here. (visible through February 19th).
Non-members: Please fill out this online form. (No fee.)
OTHER INFORMATION: Please contact register@philanthropynewyork.org with any questions.
Sometime over the next few months, Congress will begin debating legislation for Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR). As part of its commitment to protect and advance the rights of immigrant workers, labor unions are playing a central organizing and advocacy role in the CIR campaign. Learn about how labor unions are strengthening and complementing the CIR efforts of immigrants rights organizations, religious groups, community organizations, business groups, and others. Hear about how the campaign has built off of unions’ commitment to organizing low-wage immigrant workers. Examine the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in the campaign during this hour-long webinar.
Report:
A More Perfect Union, traces the historic shift in the position of organized labor to its current aggressive support for immigration reform. It also highlights labor's role in supporting and protecting the rights of all immigrant workers, regardless of their immigration status.
Registration:
Please visit our registration page.
To order a copy of one of GCIR's publications, click here.