This webinar will highlight recent immigration policy developments and new enforcement measures. Given that abusers often use the threat of immigration enforcement as a way to maintain power and control and to make victims less likely to seek help, it is important for advocates to understand immigrants' rights, special immigration remedies for victims, and how to engage in enhanced safety planning for immigrant survivors.
Join this webinar to learn how these recent changes might affect immigrant survivors of domestic and sexual assault and discuss practical ways to enhance your agency's policies, practices and advocacy around these orders.
By the end of this webinar, participants will:
- Understand the provisions of recent executive orders that are likely to directly impact immigrant survivors
- Identify key ways to protect immigrant survivors and engage in systems advocacy
- Incorporate enhanced family safety planning
- Access reliable and updated resources for immigrant survivors, such as know your rights materials and other resources
COST:
National Alliance Members: Free
Non-Members: $25
Ambreen Ahmed, has been an activist in the community for more than 25 years. She has been an advocate for domestic violence victims and has established direct services for DV victims and survivors in Northern Virginia. Ms. Ambreen is the project director for a FAITH research project and publication called “What Islam says about Domestic Violence: A guide for helping Muslim Families.” Ms. Ahmed has established “Direct Services to Meet the Needs of Muslim Survivors of Domestic and Intimate Partner Violence”. Ms. Ahmed is serving on multiple teams in Fairfax County representing FAITH in the multicultural community. She is a member of the Fairfax County Fatality review team, Domestic Violence Policy and Prevention Coordinating Council and Fairfax County and Faith Communities in Action DV work group. Ms. Ahmed is working with Fairfax County and The Women Center of Vienna on designing the Supervised Visitation and exchange center for children coming from families with domestic violence. This project is funded by DOJ.
Rosie Hidalgo, J.D., has worked in the movement to end domestic violence for nearly 25 years. Currently, she is the senior director of public policy for Casa de Esperanza: National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities, a national domestic violence resource center with a focus on providing training, research, and policy advocacy. She also works as a senior policy advisor for the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. Rosie previously served as the deputy director for policy at the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) at the U.S. Department of Justice. Prior to joining OVW, she had worked as the national policy director at Casa de Esperanza and served on the steering committee of the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence during the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 2013. She was also appointed to serve on the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence from 2010 to 2013.
Cecelia Friedman Levin serves as senior policy counsel at ASISTA Immigration Assistance, where she focuses on policy, technical assistance, and trainings related to immigration remedies for survivors of violence. Before joining ASISTA in 2012, Cecelia worked as a supervising attorney at Women Empowered Against Violence in Washington, DC representing survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in civil and immigration cases. Cecelia also acted as the domestic violence staff attorney at the National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty where she worked on federal and local housing protections for survivors of domestic violence. She has also provided legal representation to low-income immigrants in a variety of defensive and affirmative immigration applications as a staff attorney at Ayuda in Washington, DC.
Archi Pyati is the chief of policy and programs at the Tahirih Justice Center. In her position, she spearheads national and local policy and programmatic initiatives, overseeing direct services to immigrant women and girls and forging and mobilizing diverse, bipartisan coalitions to press for laws, regulations, and policies to better protect them from violence. Archi is a dedicated advocate for immigrant women and girls with more than a decade of experience in immigration law practice, women’s rights, and public policy advocacy. Prior to joining Tahirih, Archi was the deputy director of the Immigration Intervention Project at Sanctuary for Families in New York, where she served hundreds of women and girls fleeing gender-based violence, directed an attorney volunteer program, and worked with survivors to stop female genital mutilation in the United States. Before joining Sanctuary, from 2004 to 2007, Archi was a senior associate with the Human Rights Defenders Program of Human Rights First where she contributed to the development of a project focusing on the rights safety of women human rights defenders.