The NYU Center for Health and Human Rights and the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture will sponsor a symposium on Healchare for Detained Immigrants on September 23rd, 2008 from 9:00-4:30.

Location: NYU Medical Center: Snow Dining Room, 550 1st Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Enter NYU Medical Center and ask for directions to the Faculty Dining Room. Our meeting is in the Snow Dining Room, which is accessed from the Faculty Dining Room.

For more info consult http://www.med.nyu.edu/contact/directions/directions.html.

Advisors: Andrea Black (Detention Watch Network), Tom Jawetz (ACLU), Megan McLemore (Human Rights Watch), Paul Rocklin (Physicians for Human Rights).

Please RSVP (with number attending) by 8/22/08 to homer.venters@med.nyu.edu or 646‐734‐5994.

The SSI Extension legislation, signed into law at the start of the Jewish new year, is effective as of October 1. SSI eligibility for elderly and disabled refugees, aslyess and other humanitarian immigrants is now extended from seven to nine years. In addition, a provision of the bill will cover those who have already lost their SSI benefits. Those humanitarian immigrants with a naturalization application pending with the Department of Homeland Security will be granted a tenth year of SSI eligibility.

The two-year extension will help the approximately 30,000 elderly and disabled refugees who have already been cut off due to the seven-year limit, as well as the more than 19,000 refugees and humanitarian migrants who are projected to lose their benefits in the coming years. These individuals fled persecution or torture in countries such as Iran, Russia, Iraq, Vietnam, and Somalia, and now are too elderly or disabled to support themselves. Some 40 percent of the refugees affected by the SSI cut-off are from the former Soviet Union, and the majority of those are said to be Jews. Click here to read the full press release.

 

Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens will be hosting an Education and Employment Expo this Sunday, October 26th, in Queens. Some of the 25 NGO’s, that will be present, provide amazing services like free re-furbished computers, financial literacy classes and micro-credit loans to undocumented immigrants. Get connected with employment and business counselors, educations, landlord/tenant attorneys, immigrant attorneys, trainers and instructors, all under one roof! For more information please contact: Ms. Tenaz Dubash,Community Project Director, Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens, P: 718-722-6223. The event will take place at  Our Lady of the Angelus, 63-63 98th Street, Rego Park, NY 11374 (parking is available at the church)