Wednesday, March 25, 2015
9am to 5pm
Sheen Center
18 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012
Over the last several years, communities throughout the nation have prioritized initiatives to regularize the lives of persons in need of protection, including individuals and families with members that lack immigration status. In the New York City metropolitan area, public and private entities have devoted extensive resources to mobilizing in response to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, to planning for the newly announced Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program, and to providing legal and resettlement services to children and families who have fled violence and privation in Central America and Mexico.
In recent months, New York collaborative initiatives have intensified in response to the massive Executive Action programs announced by President Obama on November 20, 2014, which will cover the unauthorized parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents (DAPA). The President also announced the expansion of the DACA program and other important, but more modest initiatives. This work comes in the midst of New York City’s municipal identification card program, “IDNYC,” launched in January 2015, and on top of large-scale “steady state” work with immigrants by community-based organizations.
To examine the coordinated response of public and non-profit entities to the DAPA and DACA programs, the Archdiocese of New York, the Diocese of Brooklyn, the Diocese of Rockville Centre, and the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) are hosting an all-day event on March 25th at the Sheen Center, located in Manhattan’s NoHo neighborhood.
The event will include key-note presentations by faith leaders, as well as panel discussions with federal, state, and local officials, legal service agencies, community-based agencies, and national immigrant rights groups. Its panel discussions will:
- Examine federal, New York State and New York City policy, outreach, and initiatives on Executive Action.
- Explore legal services mobilization efforts by public and private entities and other collaborative programs in New York City, Long Island, and the Lower Hudson Valley, looking particularly at outreach, public education on benefit eligibility and the risk of fraud, and provision of legal screening, representation and advocacy.
- Address the role of non-legal, community-based institutions, particularly Catholic parishes, in ensuring the program’s success.
There will also be a short discussion on the work of national organizations in assisting local communities in implementing these programs and efforts to evaluate the programs’ success. After the formal event, there will be a reception and, for those interested, a roundtable discussion that will provide an opportunity to share and coordinate best practices and approaches to serving and empowering this population. The all-day event will seek to place this work in a broader policy, moral, and demographic context; improve the response to the needs of these populations in the New York metropolitan area; and identify lessons, successes and challenges in implementing these programs.
The event is free, but please register only if your attendance is definite. To register, visit http://goo.gl/forms/LDgubFchST or email your name, title, organization and email address to [email protected].
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Thank you to the New York Immigration Coalition for sharing news of this important event.