Press Release

On Thursday, September 1, 2016, the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), CUNY Center for Community and Ethnic Media (CCEM), Asian American Federation (AAF), MinKwon Center for Community Action, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), and the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAAPI), which is housed within the Department of Education, will participate in a media roundtable to discuss Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and its implications for individuals of Asian and Pacific Islander descent.

Representatives from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and WHIAAPI will discuss the impact of DACA on AAPI individuals, including those in the Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Filipino communities.

In 2012, the Secretary of Homeland Security announced that certain people who came to the United States as children and meet several guidelines may request consideration of deferred action for a period of two years, subject to renewal. They may also request work authorization. Deferred action is a use of prosecutorial discretion to defer removal action against an individual on a case-by-case basis for a certain period of time. Deferred action does not provide lawful status.

According to some estimates, over 130,000 AAPI individuals in the United States may be eligible to request DACA. Across Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, this could impact approximately 14,000 individuals of Asian and Pacific Islander descent, yet requests for DACA remain disproportionately low in the AAPI community.

DATE: Thursday, September 1, 2016 at 3 pm

**WHERE:
**City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Journalism
219 W. 40th St., 3rd floor (between 7th and 8th Avenues)

**Speakers:
**Reva Gupta, Senior Policy Advisor, White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
Juliet Choi, Chief of Staff, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services
Steve Choi, New York Immigration Coalition
James Hong, MinKwon Center for Community Action
Howard Shih, Asian American Federation
Annie J. Wang, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
Moderator: Jo-Ann Yoo, Executive Director, Asian American Federation

DACA recipients (Interviews will be available in Korean and Chinese following the roundtable)

Click here to RSVP.

For more information, contact:
Annie Wang, Staff Attorney
212.966.5932 x213
awang@aaldef.org