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Former North Star Program Officer Is Media Resource on New Immigration Landscape

Immigration policy has made major news in the past two weeks, first with President Obama's announcement that he is ordering a halt to the deportation of DREAM Act-eligible students. And then with the Supreme Court decision to uphold the provision that allows local police to stop anyone who they believe might be an undocumented immigrant.

Walter Barrientos, North Star Fund's Program Officer, has spent years organizing in immigrant communities. For him, immigration reform is not an abstract issue, but something that directly affects the lives of himself, his family, and his friends.

He has just posted to the Foundation Center's PhilanTopic blog an article entitled "How Foundations and Immigrant Organizations Can Respond to Supreme Court SB 1070 Ruling." In the article, he provides several steps that community-based organizations can take to respond changes in the immigration landscape. This is a must read not only for foundations and explicitly immigrant organization, but for any organization that has immigrant staff or members, or that works in any way with immigrant communities.

Walter was also recently interviewed by Public News Service on the economic impact in New York of President Obama's recent announcement that he would stop deporting DREAM Act-eligible students. In the interview he says, "New York is one of the states with one of the biggest populations of undocumented immigrant youth in the country. This is only going to improve the benefit our economy is able to garner from the talent and drive that so many immigrant youth and immigrant families in our state have."

Click here to listen to the entire interview.