Overview
What is the state of immigration law in the United States today — and what impact do our country’s laws and practices have on the millions of documented and undocumented citizens living here, including young people who arrived in this country as children? How do current immigration enforcement and detention practices affect us all? And most importantly: What changes do advocates propose that can ensure that the process of coming to the United States is fair, humane and equitable?
NJPAC, in partnership with the ACLU-NJ, invites you to join us to delve into all these questions at Immigration: Enforcement, Detention, Advocacy, the next PSEG True Diversity Film Series screening and panel discussion, which will delve into the country’s treatment of new arrivals. Before we meet, we’ll screen the 2004 documentary Colonization is Extinction, an award-winning documentary about the economic crisis in Puerto Rico, and the colonialism that fostered it.
NJPAC’s PSEG True Diversity Film Series focuses on films that examine different aspects of the ongoing social justice movement. To continue these presentations safely during the pandemic, the series follows a book club model: We’ll watch the selected films in our homes, then come together online to discuss them with panelists who can offer context.
We encourage you to view Colonization is Extinction on your own schedule; when you register, you will receive a link enabling you to watch the film online a week before our discussion. Then, join us for a virtual panel discussion at 7PM on Monday, November 15, 2021. Our panel will be moderated by Jason Hernandez of Rutgers Law School, who created the Rutgers Immigrant Community Assistance Project (RICAP), a campus-based legal service that offers free legal consultations and individual representation to Rutgers students.
Our panelists will include:
Walter Alomar is a filmmaker and the President of the Organization for Culture of Hispanic Origins (OCHO), a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education and support to Hispanic communities through educational and mental health and substance abuse counseling programs.
Yeimy Gamez Castillo is a multidisciplinary queer immigrant artist born in Honduras and raised in Newark, who co-founded of ImVisible, a community project devoted to empowering, reclaiming, and celebrating immigrant and undocumented narratives.
Erika Martinez, a fourth-year student at Rutgers University, is an organizer at Make the Road New Jersey, an organization that builds the power of immigrant and working-class communities in New Jersey to achieve dignity and justice.
Amol Sinha is the Executive Director of the ACLU-NJ, and a nationally recognized lawyer and policy expert on civil rights, immigrants’ rights, criminal justice, racial justice, and issues affecting Asian American and South Asian American communities.