Dear APAPA Members and Friends,

Please see below for the latest update on immigration reform courtesy of Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) San Francisco.

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Two weeks ago, a group of Senators released a bill that seeks to fix our broken immigration system. If passed and signed into law, our country's policies as well as its values and principles will be impacted for generations to come. It is critical that immigration reform legislation be based on the principles of fairness and inclusion. In CAA's view, there are some positive aspects of the bill. These include:

A pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. The bill provides a minimum 13-year pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants through a new category called Registered Provisional Immigrant status.

A plan to clear the massive visa backlogs. The bill will clear the current backlog of 4.4 million visa applications currently choking the system and separating families from their loved ones for years, if not decades.

An expedited road to citizenship for DREAMers. The bill provides a faster process for eligible DREAMers (young people who have entered the U.S. before the age of 16) who are, by all common sense definitions, already American.

At the same time the bill has very serious problems. Among them:

Weakening of values that make immigration most meaningful. The bill replaces the current family and employment-based foundation of immigration with something that is labeled "merit". Instead of welcoming families with the promise of equal opportunity, this new approach explicitly privileges a select few based primarily on their economic utility.

Elimination of the sibling category. The bill restricts how families are defined in a manner that is inconsistent with what makes communities, including the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, vibrant and strong. In addition to eliminating the sibling category, the bill also arbitrarily limits the age of married children of citizens who can be eligible for immigration.

No recognition of same-sex binational couples. The bill unfairly denies lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender families equal rights.

Excessive requirements for those seeking citizenship. The "RPI" status facing undocumented immigrants before eligibility for citizenship is unnecessarily long, and contains a host of excessively harsh requirements.

For a more detailed explanation of the Senate proposal, CAA recommends this document by the National Immigration Law Center: http://www.nilc.org/s744summary1.html

On April 19, 2013, My Sister's House (MSH) announced Maeley Tom, APAPA's Special Advisor, as one of the newest cast members for their 12th Anniversary Gala on May 20, 2013 in Sacramento. Cast members will perform on stage in a Broadway-style show and funds raised from the event will help provide shelter and supportive programs to Asian and Pacific Islander (API) women and children who are victims of domestic violence. For more information, please visit http://www.my-sisters-house.org/.

The Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Association (APAPA) in partnership with local community organizations will be having 2 workshops to provide the public an overview of the job opportunities available with Covered California Rancho Cordova Call Center.

Session Dates & Times:

Wednesday, April 24, 2013 from 12:00-1:30pm and Thursday, April 25, 2013 from 5:30-7:00pm

Location: APAPA National Headquarters, 4000 Truxel Rd., Ste. 3, Sacramento, CA 95834

Links:

Hi,

As the new President of the APAPA Sacramento Chapter, I look forward to personally meeting and working with each and every one of you.  I will continue our chapter’s long history of working collaboratively with partner organizations in the community and look for ways to expand upon it. I will also continue to maintain and build upon the close relationships we have built with our area’s elected officials; we greatly appreciate the openness and willingness they have shown to engage with our community and support APAPA events.  Also, as always, all of the work that APAPA does could not take place without the generous support of our sponsors and I will make sure that we continue to show our appreciation and recognize their importance to our organization.

The dedication and commitment of all of our members---all of you---is absolutely amazing and rest assured that I am well aware of the important role you have played and will continue to play in APAPA’s success.  My door is always open for your input and your volunteer efforts are always appreciated!  I look forward to growing APAPA and taking the organization to the next level.  As someone who has worked in sales and business development for the past 20 years, I know that the key to APAPA’s growth lies in its members.  We need your help to spread the word about APAPA by inviting friends, colleagues, and family to APAPA events.  We also ask that you actively engage with us on APAPA’s social media sites---social media is a quick and easy way that you can help us expand our reach exponentially. If each of our members connected with us on social media and shared our content regularly we could literally ‘click our way to the Capitol.’

Information about immigration reform is all over the news recently.  APAPA will be holding a Town Hall  to help educate and mobilize our community members. We need every member actively participating in this because the stakes are very high for us as nearly 40% of all immigrants to the US come from Asia.  There is an urgent need to make sure that API voices are heard and considered as an integral part of this reform because out of the 13.5 million Asian Americans currently living in the United States, 8.7 million immigrated to the US.  Of particular concern to the API community are proposals that would eliminate certain categories of family-based immigration.  To put these proposals in perspective, if they had been implemented 30 years ago neither I nor my parents nor many of my aunts, uncles and cousins…all of whom are now positively contributing to the US as small business owners, pharmacists, doctors, engineers, etc…would have been allowed to immigrate to the US.

On a lighter note, we are having our annual membership drive and BBQ on June 29^th at the Yin Ranch. Over 500 members attended last year and this year’s event will be even better!  This is a great opportunity for our elected officials, donors, and members to bring their family and friends to socialize in a relaxed atmosphere. This year’s event is Hawaiian themed and it’s a gathering that you won’t want to miss! 

Thanks again for all your support!

Henry Chang

APAPA-CVR will be hosting its Stockton Civic Town Hall Forum on Saturday, April 20, 2013 from 6:00-8:30pm at Central United Methodist Church in Stockton.

For more information, please contact Danny Lee, APAPA-CVR President at 209-479-6727 or by email, dannylee@apapa.org.

Link to APAPA-CVR's page: http://www.apapa.org/cvc/tp-apapa-cvc.aspx

Dear Friends,

Congress has formally expressed regret for the passage of the Chinese Exclusion laws in the late 19th Century. The 1882 Project Foundation (recently established by several national organizations for the 1882 Project) would like the President to issue a statement or proclamation in May to reinforce the idea of America being built by immigrants from all countries. We urge you to join 1882 Project Foundation's effort in signing a petition asking the President to issue a statement or proclamation on May 10, 2013.

Share the link http://wh.gov/ssMz  with your contacts through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We need 100,000 signatures by April 20th! Please take action and help spread the word. For more information on the 1882 Project, please visit http://www.1882project.org/.

Thank you,

The 1882 Project Committee

RSVP today for the 9th Annual Capitol Internship Award & Scholarship Fundraising Gala on Saturday, March 30, 2013 at the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Sacramento. Funds raised will go towards scholarships for high school and college students and summer internship program for college students. For more information, please visit www.apapa.org or contact Lucy Oback at (916) 928-9988 ext. 102, lucyoback@apapa.org or Sokie Hul at (916) 928-9988 ext. 100, sokiehul@apapa.org.

Download flyer: http://www.apapa.org/pdf/2013/2013_internship_flyer.pdf

City Hall Fellows, a non-partisan, non-profit organization, is currently seeking young leaders for their 12-month, paid, post-college Fellowship program. The program places recent college graduates in fellowship positions in local governments to work with high-level local officials and participate in intensive and comprehensive training in how cities work. Deadline to submit applications: Thursday March 14 at 11:59pm PT

For more information on the Fellowship program, please visit http://www.cityhallfellows.org/apply/faqs/.