Visa and Immigration Issues Seminar Held at NYU

Last Friday GSOC/UAW and CSSA (the Chinese Students and Scholars Association) sponsored a seminar on visa and immigration issues. For many graduate employees who want to continue to work in the United States after graduation, acquiring the proper visa can be confusing and daunting. Attendees learned more about their options and about their status as international graduate employees, through a brief presentation that was followed by a question and answer session.

We were joined by attorneys Deborah Notkin and Christine Birgagliano. Notkin is the lead at Barst, Mukamel & Kleiner, LLP, and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and Christine Brigagliano, from Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale, LLP, a nationally-renowned firm specializing in immigration and nationality law.

As a union, we can address the concerns of international student employees in the context of workplace rights through collective bargaining. International graduate employees and postdocs represented by the UAW have won significant gains in compensation, benefits, and workplace rights through collective bargaining and have established a stronger national political voice advocating for the rights of immigrant and guest workers in the US. Even though the union does not represent GAs, RAs and TAs with respect to legal matters or visa processing, we want to provide access to information that may be useful to graduate employees in addressing visa/immigration issues.

If you were unable to attend but interested in getting information, email us at gsocuaw@gmail.com and we will get you copies of the handouts from the seminar.