September’s Shared Offering: Immigration Forum

This month’s Shared Offering Recipient is the Immigration Forum (IF). Immigration Forum is a local not-for-profit organization open to all residents in our community. Participants include immigrants, students, clergy, service providers, labor union representatives, residents, and community organizations concerned about the progress and plight of immigrants in the Champaign County community. In addition to activities promoting comprehensive and humane immigration reform, the Forum and its Allies of Faith working group has organized an October Immigrant Justice Month for the past three years, a collaborative effort among local faith communities (including the Unitarian Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign) to highlight the plight and promise of immigrant communities in Champaign County.

This summer, the group again had an informational table twice a month at Farmer’s Market in the Square. The Forum also works as direct service providers assisting undocumented immigrants and their children to apply for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, which allows students who qualify to get work permits and drivers licenses. In addition to DACA, we are assisting immigrants in applying for Drivers License for All, a recently passed piece of legislation in Illinois that provides undocumented Illinois residents the opportunity to qualify for a driver’s license and purchase auto insurance.

The IF’s most recent initiative centers around making CU a welcoming, friendly community to immigrants of all ethnic backgrounds and will be holding a forum in Fellowship Hall on Tuesday, September 16^th from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on the very current issue, “Central American Children at the Border: What Can We in Champaign-Urbana Do?” The UUCUC has actively supported activities of the CU-Immigration Forum/Allies of Faith since the group’s beginnings some three years ago. Indeed, the Allies of Faith often have their monthly meetings at our church and various working groups of the IF are currently meeting at Channing Murray. Our minister, the Rev. Axel Gehrmann, has been an active supporter of immigration reform as a moral issue and, on a national level, the UUA is definitely a supporter of comprehensive, humane immigration reform. In brief, the many and varied activities of the IF provide an opportunity for UUs to continue to be involved locally in immigration justice efforts and our new two-year Immigration Justice and Advocacy Initiative.