June 1, 2007
Dear Attorneys and Attorney Offices Serving the Korean American Community:
The Korean American community needs your support! While moving ahead with a campaign to defend family immigration, I ask you to help us collect and highlight stories of immigrants who are directly affected by the proposed reduction in family immigration.
As reported in the media, the Senate is discussing an immigration bill that in essence eliminates family invitations, and demands extremely high fees and a return to the country of origin to undocumented immigrants seeking legalization. The bill is expected to be put to a vote between June 4th and June 8th of next week.
This bill would eliminate preference categories for siblings and adult children, and severely cut the numbers for parents. This would effectively cut the main avenue of Korean immigration over the past century, preventing our community's growth.
The Korean Resource Center is conducting a multifaceted campaign involving legislative visits, a rally on June 6th at 12pm, and phone calls to Sen. Feinstein, to defend family immigration. One aspect in which we are lacking with great urgency are stories of individuals directly impacted by the proposed cuts. If you could suggest your clients – those who have filed family petitions after January 2005 or plan to do so in the future - to share their stories with us, and upon their consent, share your client's contact information with us, KRC would use these stories to make our case to legislators and the media, and would make a major impact in our work.
Please contact Yongho Kim, Immigrant Rights Coordinator at KRC, at 323-937-3718 or yk [at] krcla.org to offer stories or for questions. Stories during the week of 6/4-6/8 are preferred and we will also take stories after this.
Sincerely yours,
Dae J. Yoon
Executive Director
Korean Resource Center