Breakfast & Registration

Panel 1:  Financial Justice Issues Facing Immigrant Communities

Lower income and undocumented immigrants face a host of obstacles in the financial services system: fears of information-sharing between banks and immigration authorities, burdensome ID requirements, prohibitive costs, and widespread misinformation about immigrants' rights post-Patriot Act.  This panel will outline truths vs. myths, address abuses of immigrants' fair housing rights, and highlight special issues for immigrant workers.

Deyanira Del Rio, NEDAP/Immigrant Financial Justice Network

Charu Chandrasekhar, Chhaya CDC

Mayra Peters-Quintero, NYU Immigrant Rights Clinic

Panel 2:  Community Responses

Hear from groups that are devising creative strategies to promote immigrants' economic rights and financial services access. Panelists will share their experiences organizing a community development credit union, mounting a grassroots campaign to press for accountability from money transmitters, and forging agreements with banks to expand services to immigrants by accepting organizational and consular IDs, ITINs and more.

Liliane Loya, NYC Financial Network Action Consortium

Andres Uribe, Forest Hills Community House

Francisca Martinez, FAC/Union de la Comunidad Latina

Saru Jayaraman, Restaurant Opportunities Center of NY

Strategy Session

Facilitated by Mark Winston Griffith, NEDAP