Immigrant Rights Program

The Korean American community faced tremendous challenges and difficulties in the early 1990s. They included the Los Angeles Civil Unrest of 1992, Proposition 187 in 1994, and in1996, the repeal of affirmative action as well as the signing of the welfare and immigration reform laws. These new laws and policies had a profound impact on Korean Americans, immigrants and ethnic minorities. It led to the unprecedented efforts to educate and mobilize Korean Americans towards the goal of defending and advancing immigrant rights. Some of our success include the restoration of SSI in 1997 to certain groups of immigrants and the restoration of food stamps to certain groups of immigrants in 1998.