Tag Archives: Immigration

Cabrini Immigrant Services of NYC Annual Fundraiser – “Rooted in Dignity”

Cabrini Immigrant Services of New York City (CIS-NYC), a nonprofit organization supporting immigrant New Yorkers, will host its annual fundraiser on Saturday, June 13, 2026, from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM, at the St. Frances Cabrini Shrine Lawn, 701 Fort Washington Avenue, New York, NY 10040.

The evening, themed “Rooted in Dignity,” will celebrate the resilience of immigrants across New York City’s diverse communities, honor those who champion immigrant rights, and reaffirm CIS-NYC’s commitment to fostering justice, dignity, and respect for all.

Attendees will enjoy performances by the award-winning Ivalas Quartet and the Afro-Indigenous-Colombian Cumbia ensemble, La Cumbiamba eNeYé, returning for their fourth year at this event. Delicious food and drinks will be provided by local street vendors.

Join us for a fun, family friendly evening, all for a great cause!

Word Up Recirculation: Seth Michelson’s HOPE ON THE BORDER with David C. Baluarte

Word Up welcomes award-winning professor Seth Michelson to discuss his new book Hope on the Border: Immigration, Incarceration, and the Power of Poetry, a humanizing story of immigration shown through the lens of undocumented, unaccompanied children and the poems they write. In conversation with Michelson will be David C. Baluarte, an immigration attorney and CUNY law professor.

“Heartfelt . . . a surprisingly uplifting call to reform an unjust system.” -Publishers Weekly

This event is a $5 suggested donation ticket with 30 max attendees. Please register in advance.

In compliance with Word Up Community Safety guidelines, all attendees for this event are encouraged to stay masked.

Recirculation, a project of Word Up Community Bookshop, is located at 876 Riverside Drive (near 160th St.) in Washington Heights, NYC. You can take the 1 train to 157th St., A/C train to 163rd St., and the M4 and M5 to Broadway and 159/160th.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In heart-wrenching prose, Seth Michelson faces the U.S. immigration crisis head on-by learning and sharing the stories of migrating people fleeing violence and poverty, and by leading workshops for minors held inside a maximum-security detention center. Highlighting the experiences of people desperate for safety, Michelson tirelessly fights for justice and their freedom. Guided through the powerful medium of poetry, the children share their pasts, struggles, hopes, and dreams. Among them, Carlitos, a 13-year-old boy who escaped a gang to try to make a safe and honest life on his own after his mother’s death, and Karla, a teenager whose family begged her to flee for safety after she was shot. Remarkably, they and other children from similar circumstances express themselves with honesty, passion, and optimism for a better future.

Michelson also introduces us to migrating people at the border, including a woman who was chased from her home amid violence, and a dedicated father who was arrested and beaten while searching for work to make a more secure life for his wife and daughter.

Whether relating experiences in a Mexican refugee camp or a U.S. immigration detention center, Michelson’s prose is brisk and gripping, offering hard-earned insights into ways we might create a better immigration system that treats all people with dignity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Seth Michelson is an award-winning professor who has gained recognition from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Fulbright Foundation. He is the author of academic articles, book introductions, film and book reviews, and fourteen books of poetry and poetry in translation. His work has been published in English and Spanish in Argentina, Mexico, England, and Italy, among other countries. He currently teaches at Washington and Lee University in Virginia where he is the chair of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

David C. Baluarte (he/él) joined CUNY School of Law as the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and a Professor of Law in January 2024. Baluarte is an advocate, teacher, and scholar in the areas of immigration, refugee and statelessness protection, and international human rights. He has written numerous journal articles, academic studies, human rights reports, and participated in various grant-funded projects and high-profile impact litigation initiatives in these areas.

Translocal Feminist Film Series: Immigrant Women: resisting and re-existing

Undocumented Women’s Fund invites you to our annual outdoor Translocal Feminist Film Series, “Immigrant Women: resisting and re-existing” (

As the criminalization of immigrant communities intensifies and our already precarious access to basic social services is curtailed, we have curated a list of films that highlight the intersecting character of our struggles–whether over labor rights, access to social services, and/or against surveillance, detention and deportation. In its fifth year, our Film Series also celebrates the resilience, sisterhood, solidarity and life-sustaining labor performed by immigrant women and gender expansive people.

Join us throughout August for three bilingual (English/Spanish) screenings:

🪶 Saturday 8/30, Hummingbirds (2024) dir Estefanía “Beba” Contreras and Silvia Del Carmen Castaños

English with Spanish subtitles

In Hummingbirds, Silvia and Beba tell their own coming-of-age story, transforming their hometown on the Texas-Mexico border into a wonderland of creative expression and activist hijinks. Filmed collaboratively over the final summer of their fleeting youth, their cinematic self-portrait celebrates the power of friendship and joy as tools of survival and resistance.

 

🚨 All screenings will be at Haven plaza (711W 168th St NYC 10032 across from Barnes and Noble).

 

⏱️Doors open at 6:30 and film will begin at 7:30, followed by an open discussion lead by fellow organizers and filmmakers.

 

📍Stay tuned for the details on sister screenings in cities throughout Mexico and Central America.

 

💲Donations will be collected at the door, but nobody will be turned away for lack of funds.Come prepared: we will have food by local vendors, drinks and merch for sale!

Dyckman Farmhouse: History in Focus 2025 – “Diversity and it’s Limits: Attitudes Towards Immigration in New York”

Dyckman Farmhouse Museum presents History In Focus 2025:

A Virtual Lecture Series on
Immigrant History in Upper Manhattan

“Diversity and it’s Limits: Attitudes Towards Immigration in New York” with Dr. Philip Kasinitz

June 18th, 2025
12pm on Zoom

FREE!
REGISTER HERE!

New York’s history has long been the history of migrants and newcomers. Since the days of Dutch New Amsterdam, waves of migrants—some voluntary, some not—have continually remade the city. Historically, immigrants have accounted for almost all of the City’s population growth as well as its emergence as a center of economic activity and cultural innovation.

Despite its long history of ethnic and racial conflict, New Yorkers have generally been more favorably disposed towards immigration—if not necessarily towards all groups of immigrants– than most Americans. However, last year’s influx of refugees, many of whom were bused to New York, has presented the city with new challenges. The mayor described this influx as “unprecedented” and feared that it could “destroy the city”. More recently the policies of the Trump administration have framed migration as a “crisis” and local and federal policies have increasingly come into conflict.

For the FINAL presentation of History in Focus 2025, Dr. Philip Kasinitz will explore some of the history of how New York has received immigrants and discuss what is and is not new about the present situation. Dr. Kasinitz will also present the surprising findings of a new survey on attitudes towards migrants among today’s New Yorkers.

Philip Kasinitz is Presidential Professor of Sociology and director of the Advanced Research Collaborative at the City University of New York Graduate Center, where he founded the Master’s program in International Migration Studies. His co-authored book Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age received the American Sociological Association Distinguished Book Award and the Eastern Sociological Society’s Mira Komarovsky Book award. Other recent works include Growing Up Muslim in Europe and the United Sates and Global Cities, Local Streets. Former President of the Eastern Sociological Society, he serves on The Russell Sage Foundation’s committee on Race, Ethnicity and Immigration and the Historical Advisory Committee of the Ellis Island Museum.

This program is supported, in part, by, the Honorable Carmen De La Rosa, New York City Council, District 10.

Cabrini Shrine: Immigration and Prejudice with Author Paul Moses

“Immigration and Prejudice.” Paul Moses, author of An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York’s Irish and Italians, and The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia, speaks on what the New York story—and the personal experiences of Mother Cabrini and famed detective Joseph Petrosino—can tell us about trying to break the historical cycle of prejudice that confronts immigrants, even in this City of Immigrants.