The U.S.
Dept. of Justice in July awarded almost $725,000 in grants to 11
nonprofit groups serving communities throughout the United States to
conduct public education programs for workers and employers about
immigration-related employment discrimination.
The grants, which range from $45,000 to $85,000, were awarded by the
Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment
Practices (OSC), which is part of the Justice Dept.'s Civil Rights
Division. Grant recipients 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.
The OSC's mission is to educate both legally authorized workers and
their employers about the antidiscrimination provisions of the
Immigration and Nationality Act, enforce legal protections against
citizenship and national origin discrimination, and document abuse
in the workplace.
The nonprofit groups that were awarded the grants are:
-
Association of Farmworker
Opportunity Programs (Washington, DC),
serving
the lower 48 states and Puerto Rico.
-
Catholic Charities of Dallas (Dallas, Texas),
serving workers and employers in Texas, Arkansas, New
Mexico and Oklahoma.
-
Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington, Hogar Hispano
(Arlington, VA ), serving immigrant workers and employers in
Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC.
-
Centro Legal de la Raza (Oakland, CA), reaching Latino workers
and employers throughout the five-county San Francisco Bay area.
-
Civil
Society (St. Paul, MN), serving workers and employers in the
Twin Cities’ Asian, African and Hispanic communities.
-
Colorado Legal Services (Denver, CO), educating service
providers and newly-arrived Asian and Muslim immigrants in the
Denver area, as well as rural migrant and seasonal farm workers
throughout the state.
-
Employers’ Association of New Jersey (Livingston, NJ), advising
thousands of employers on the antidiscrimination provision of
the Immigration and Nationality Act.
-
Legal
Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA), serving Latino
and Asian immigrants and refugee workers and employers in the
greater Los Angeles area.
-
Legal
Assistance Foundation of Central Massachusetts (Worcester, MA),
educating workers, service providers, and leaders among the
Latino, Southeast Asian and African communities in central
Massachusetts.
-
National Immigration Law Center (Los Angeles, CA), carrying out
a national program to educate immigration service providers and
pro bono attorneys through regional seminars in California’s
Central Valley and in the post-Katrina Gulf Coast region.
-
YMCA
of Greater New York (New York, NY), providing education to
employers, service providers, and immigrant workers from Latin
America, the Caribbean, Asia and South Asia.
The grants were announced on July 10, 2006.
More information about protections against employment discrimination
under the immigration laws is available by calling the OSC at
800-255-7688, or 202-616-5594, or by 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, DC 20530
Email:
osc.crt@usdoj.gov
Website:
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/osc
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