“Just Come the Right Way: A Look Inside the Immigration Machine”

Speaker: Sara Lowry, Associate Director of Legal Services, U.S. Committee on Refugees and Immigrants, Albany

Join us as we convene for our first in-person EBWA (Evening Branch of the Women’s Alliance) meeting in three years! Sara Lowry will provide us with a brief history of immigration laws to give context to the extreme complexities and inherent racism of immigration. She will touch on how the immigration system touches each of our lives every day and will inform us about the work of the U.S. Committee on Refugees and Immigrants. Currently serving as the Associate Director of Legal Services at USCRI, Sara began her law career practicing insurance and municipal civil defense. However, she always knew she wanted to serve immigrants and refugees. After a few years of litigation, she transitioned to a boutique employment immigration firm before settling in at USCRI as a refugee attorney. At USCRI, she developed the Albany legal office from one legal assistant to a team of six. The bulk of Sara’s work focuses on refugee family reunification, obtaining lawful permanent residence, and naturalization. The majority of her client caseload has been from Afghanistan; during the Afghan evacuation in August 2021, she coordinated the international rescue of four unaccompanied children hiding in Kabul. Since that time, she has led USCRI’s national efforts to assist the Afghan evacuee arrivals obtain permanent legal status while continuing to advocate for and support all nationalities, including Ukrainian, Central American, and other refugees from across the world. — All women are welcome to attend what promises to be a unique and very interesting program.

Although we are unable at this time to resume offering dinner as we used to do, we will serve coffee, tea, and dessert before the program. We urge you to arrive by 6:45 pm (use the back door to the church, off the parking lot) so that everyone can greet each other and settle in before Sara’s talk begins shortly after 7 pm. Following the presentation, there will be time for questions.  Networking (when each woman may share something of interest with the group) will begin around 8:15, and the meeting will end no later than 9pm.

While reservations are not required, it would be helpful if people would email Gabrielle Reals at ellegr3@gmail.com by Tuesday, March 28 to let her know they are coming, so we have some idea how many people to expect and so that we can notify everyone should a last minute cancellation (due to weather) be necessary. We will send out a general message to everyone that usually gets our EBWA emails that day, in case of cancellation. As a reminder, there is no charge for EBWA programs this year, but in order for us to be able to pay our speakers an honorarium, we need your help. Please consider subscribing by sending a $30 check made out to EBWA to Carol Furman (contact her at cfurm13@gmail.com to learn where to send your check).

To see the complete calendar of EBWA Programs for 2022-2023, please click here.