Carlos Saavedra to speak at PHF during UK visit
Carlos Saavedra, a prominent US activist for rights for undocumented young people, will speak at an event at the Foundation’s offices tomorrow. He will be interviewed by PHF trustee Beeban Kidron about his own life as an undocumented young person and his experiences as a campaigner for immigrants’ rights.
President Obama has pledged to legalise the status of around 11 million mostly Latino people currently living in the USA with no official papers. The move will pave the way for them to become full citizens. Saavedra, now 26 and himself undocumented until a few years ago, led a campaign that made undocumented migrants a key issue in the 2012 US Presidential election, swinging Latino support behind Obama when he acted to stop deportations of young people and promised further action.
Saavedra’s family moved to the USA on tourist visas from Peru when he was 12. They outstayed their allotted six months and became undocumented, leaving them vulnerable to abuse with no recourse to support from the authorities, and cut off from many services and opportunities.
The PHF Social Justice programme commissioned research on the lives of young undocumented migrants in England, published in the ‘No Right to Dream’ report. This work led to the development of the Supported Options Initiative, a Special Initiative in partnership with US funder, Unbound Philanthropy, that seeks to find innovative ways to provide information, advice and support to undocumented people.
The evening at PHF is hosted in partnership with the Barrow Cadbury Trust.
