FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TUESDAY, JULY 24, 2007 WWW.USDOJ.GOV CRT (202) 514-2007 TDD (202) 514-1888 WASHINGTON The Department of Justice today announced that $725,000 in grants has been awarded to 11 organizations throughout the country, to conduct public education programs for workers and employers about immigration-related job discrimination.
The grants, which range from $40,000 to $90,000, are being awarded by the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC) of the Civil Rights Division. Award recipients, which serve local communities, will assist discrimination victims; conduct seminars for workers, employers and immigration service providers; distribute educational materials in various languages; and place advertisements in local communities through both mainstream and ethnic media.
Awarding grants to professional and community-based organizations better enables us to educate workers and employers about their rights and responsibilities under the anti-discrimination provisions of our immigration laws, said Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. Our grant recipients, who are well known and respected in their communities, will work with us to prevent immigration-related discrimination against authorized workers in the workplace. The mission of OSC is to educate both legally authorized workers and their employers about the anti-discrimination provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), enforce legal protections against citizenship and national-origin discrimination, and document abuse in hiring and firing. The OSC grant recipients are: -Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California - Los Angeles, Calif. - will train Asian/Pacific Islander (API) workers and Asian small-business owners in LA and the Bay Area.
-Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs - Washington, D.C. - will educate thousands of agricultural workers and employers through a network of 340 member agencies rural offices throughout the lower 48 states and Puerto Rico.
-Catholic Charities of Dallas - Dallas, Texas - will seek to vindicate the rights of exploited workers and educate employers of their responsibilities under the anti-discrimination provision in northern Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico and Oklahoma.
-Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Palm Beach - Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. - will reach work-authorized immigrant workers, small business owners and social service organizations through a trilingual (English, Spanish, and Creole) campaign in Palm Beach and four adjacent counties.
-Colorado Legal Services - Denver, Colo. - will strategically extend urban and rural community education sessions for immigrant workers and advocates to locations and under-represented immigrant populations statewide.
-Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA) - Los Angeles, Calif. - will serve Latino and Asian immigrants and asylee/refugee workers and employers in the greater Los Angeles/Long Beach area.
-Legal Services of South Central Michigan - Ann Arbor, Mich. - will visit migrant farmworker camps to educate workers and conduct community meetings in rural areas in Michigan.
-Legal Aid of Nebraska - Omaha, Neb. - will focus large and rapidly expanding immigrant populations, especially Hispanic (Mexican), Asian and North African (Somali and Sudanese refugee) communities statewide.
-Nachman & Associates - Ridgewood, N.J. - will train employers throughout New Jersey, provide online Web-based seminar, and broadly distribute OSCs educational video.
-National Immigration Law Center (NILC) - Los Angeles, Calif. - will carry out a national program to educate immigration attorneys, service providers and advocates nationwide, and will host regional seminars in southern California, Idaho and Georgia.
-New York City Human Rights Commission - New York, N.Y. - will partner with NY Immigration Coalition, an association of over 200 community organizations, to educate workers, employers and service providers about worker rights and employer responsibilities under INA. More information about protections against job discrimination under the immigration laws may be obtained by calling 800-255-7688, 202-616-5594, or writing to: Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division 950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, D.C. 20530 Email: osc.crt@usdoj.gov Web site: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/osc 07-543
Source: US Department of Justice
