The National Council of Jewish Women Los Angeles (NCJW/LA) will host a free community program on Wednesday, June 24 at noon at the NCJW/LA council house, 543 N. Fairfax Ave., to discuss the recent stalling actions of Congress in refusing to agree on comprehensive immigration reform.

A panel discussion will be moderated by Jeffrey Kaye, freelance journalist and author of “Moving Millions: How Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration”.

The panelists include Amanda Susskind, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League; Joshua Stehlik, workers rights attorney for the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles; Eileen Ma, executive director of API Equality-LA; and a representative from The Coalition for Human Immigration Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA).

The President has acted to allow the parents of U.S. citizens or legal resident children to apply for temporary deportation relief and work permits, as well as to expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for eligibility to youths who came to the U.S. as children.

The President’s action would prevent immigrants — some of whom have been in the country for decades — from being taken from their homes, jobs, communities and families.

“Comprehensive Immigration Reform has been a benchmark of the National Council of Jewish Women since its founding in 1893,” NCJW/LA vice president of advocacy Ruth Zeitzew said. “We currently seek a bi-partisan, humane political resolution of our existing immigration problems and the necessary reform of the policies that produced them. The existing obstacles to reform that must first be resolved include the vastness of the problem involved in dealing with the millions of undocumented people who are already in this country; and the potential costs and the related implications of all proposed immigration reform policies on our existing health care, education and social service systems”.

Three-quarters of immigrants in the U.S. are women and children. The ability to remain with and care for their families is the first step to full social, economic and civic integration into the American community, according to NCJW/LA.

To learn more or to get involved, join NCJW/LA on June 24 at noon. For more information or to RSVP, contact Director of Advocacy Ruth Williams at (323)852-8503 or at ruth@ncjwla.org.