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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.
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To register for this policy update, please visit GCIR's program registration page.
In the United States, an estimated 8.2 million immigrants are currently eligible for citizenship. More than half live in California (2.5 million), New York (950,000), and Texas (900,000). And in over a dozen other states—including Florida, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Arizona, Washington, and North Carolina—there are at least 100,000 naturalization-eligible persons.
Naturalization brings significant social, economic, and civic benefits not only to newcomers and their families but also to local communities, individual states, and the country as a whole. However, in order to help large numbers of immigrants become U.S. citizens, national, state, and local funders must work together to build a stronger immigrant integration infrastructure that expands access to immigration legal services, citizenship application assistance, and English language instruction.
Grantmaking colleagues from around the country joined GCIR’s first webinar of 2012 to learn about GCIR’s national citizenship initiative as well as:
For more information about this program, please contact GCIR’s Director of Special Projects, Felecia Bartow.
GCIR's 2012 National Convening, Global Trends, National Implications, Local Innovations, June 13-15 in Portland, Oregon, will bring together a community of grantmakers who share a commitment to helping immigrants become full and active members of our society. It will offer funders an opportunity to learn from one another’s experiences and expertise. And it will uplift a range of perspectives, strategies, and innovations from some of the field’s most inspiring leaders, thinkers, activists, and advocates.
"What really struck me was how many different kinds of funders from different parts of the country are involved in immigration…this was an opportunity for me to meet people who have more expertise, making the experience really valuable."
Open registration for GCIR members and non-members is now open. GCIR members can register at a special discounted rate! If you’re not a member, join now and receive this exclusive discount!
Co-Sponsored by: Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA), the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation (FCCP), Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR), Neighborhood Funders Group (NFG), and the Women Donors Network (WDN).
Immigrants and refugees working with native-born Americans play a vital role in building secure, vibrant and cohesive communities. The power of immigrants and refugees is growing, and communities are proactively organizing a political voice that demands to be heard. Though first- and second-generation Americans make up 54% of newly registered voters, immigrant voters continue to face barriers to full participation in the democratic process and are the targets of new state immigration reform laws that would hinder their ability to contribute to and participate in their communities.
With the 2012 elections just a year away, what can we learn from past strategies for mobilizing immigrant communities and their allies, and how will immigrant communities become engaged in shaping policy decisions on the local and national level? Join us for a webinar and discussion on the future of immigrant civic engagement and learn how statewide immigrant organizing campaigns are encouraging leadership development, engaging non-eligible voters, and working across multiple issues to make a difference in 2012 and beyond.
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This will be a timely and engaging event. We hope you can join us!
Registration:
To register for this webinar here by Monday, November 7th.
Please note that the subject matter of these funder-only calls is strictly limited to discussion of nonpartisan civic participation work as set forth in the agenda.
Presented by Unbound Philanthropy.
The right to political asylum is rooted in longstanding international and U.S. laws, and new opportunities have emerged to extend this protection to some of the most marginalized populations. In recent years, advocates have used cross-cutting strategies to push the boundaries of the refugee definition so that it has begun to include - among others - women survivors of gender-based violence, sexual minorities, HIV+ individuals, and abused and abandoned children.
The recognition of such individuals as legitimate refugees is an important victory for human rights, but it also makes this protection available to individuals from countries - such as Mexico - that have historically been excluded from asylum protection. Although these developments are encouraging, there is the risk that these hard-fought victories can be lost in the current environment.
We invite you to a briefing that will provide an overview of the key issues, with a focus on ongoing national strategies to expand the refugee definition. Speakers will address the critical connections between well-established international human rights norms and the evolution of protection for women, sexual minorities, children, and other similar populations.
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Moderated by Taryn Higashi, Unbound Philanthropy
Registration:
Please RSVP to Jeremy Dirac by October 14th.
For those who are unable to attend in person, Unbound Philanthropy will be providing a teleconference line so that you may have the opportunity to listen in.
Co-Sponsored by: Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families and Grantmakers in Health.
The passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in March of 2010 moved us one-step closer to ensuring that everyone in America has access to affordable health care coverage, with an estimated 32 million people gaining access by 2019. The implications of health care reform for immigrant communities now have become clearer. Join us for a funders’ briefing to discuss who will benefit from reform, what challenges we will face in enrolling hard to reach communities, what gaps in coverage will continue to exist, and who are likely to remain uninsured. Learn from our speakers and fellow participants about how funders can help strategically address these issues.
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Don’t miss this opportunity to learn more about the implications of health care reform on immigrant communities! To RSVP, please visit the event registration page.
Join Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation, Neighborhood Funders Group, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, Environmental Grantmakers Association and Women Donors Network for a thought-provoking series of teleconferences/webinars geared to help you prepare your 2012 election-related funding strategies. Come learn about the political landscape, pivotal issues, and strategies and collaborations designed to inspire broad civic participation in the next election!
*Title and time are subject to change.
For more information about this webinar series, please contact Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation’s Program Associate, Jordan Thierry.
Registration
To RSVP to any of these webinars and learn more about funders’ role in supporting civic engagement in the 2012 elections, please visit the event registration page.
Please note that the subject matter of these funder-only webinars is strictly limited to discussion of nonpartisan civic participation work as set forth in the agenda.
GCIR, in partnership with OneAmerica and with the generous support of the Northwest Area Foundation, invites you to kick off the 4th Annual National Immigrant Integration Conference with hors d’ oeuvres and dinner at the critically acclaimed Wild Ginger! Meet and network with funders across the country who are funding immigrant and refugee integration, and learn more about GCIR.
An informal reception with the OneAmerica board begins at 6:00pm, and the funders-only dinner begins at 7:00pm. For more information about this event, please contact GCIR Program Director, Diana Ip.
Sponsored by the California Community Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Southern California Grantmakers, the Knight Foundation, The California Endowment, the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund and Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees.
This briefing will look at why citizenship is important and how local funders can get involved and leverage the national investments being made around citizenship.
For more information on the campaign, contact Virginia Mosqueda.
Registration
To RSVP, please contact Becky Gross.
Additional details, including parking instructions, will be provided in a confirmation email.
Led by Neighborhood Funders Group’s Working Group on Labor and Community Partnerships with co-sponsorship from Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees.
Following the June teleconference, "Portrait of America: Opportunities and Challenges for Immigrant Communities," this briefing takes a closer look at the organizations and forces at play in the Turning the Tide campaign against the criminalization of immigrants.
In addition to the long list of human rights abuses associated with the emphasis on enforcement, the current immigration climate has been a huge and limiting factor in the ability of workers to exercise their right to organize and improve their jobs and communities.
The increase in immigration enforcement, as well as the increase in anti-immigrant bills that take Arizona's SB 1070 further, is bad news for all American communities. But, there is good news as well.
This teleconference will cover the campaign as a whole and take a closer look at some of the incremental gains made in states like Illinois, Massachusetts and Florida. We will also look at some of the laws, often in the states that see the fastest-growing immigrant communities (e.g., Georgia), that propose draconian limits on those states' newest residents. Panelists will specifically address how the progressive infrastructure (or lack of infrastructure) influences the nature of the activism and response in these various regions.
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To register for this funder briefing, email NFG consultant Dania Rajendra.
This call is open only to funders and there is no charge to participate.
To order a copy of one of GCIR's publications, click here.