On June 21, 2001, NCLC held its first Immigrant Justice in the Consumer Marketplace workshop in Philadelphia, PA at the offices of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). The workshop was co-sponsored by AFSC and the Language Access Project of Community Legal Services. Over 20 attendees participated in the forum, representing a range of community-based organizations, social service providers, and government agencies serving Philadelphia's Asian, African, Latino, and Eastern European immigrant and refugee communities.

If you are a Philadelphia-area immigrant advocate who missed NCLC's June 21 forum, don't worry. NCLC will be holding its next Immigrant Justice workshop in late September or early October 2001. This workshop will consist of a full day training on issues such as strategies to deal with immigration consultant fraud, Pennsylvania consumer protection law, high cost credit, student loan discharges, and more. Check this Web page again in the upcoming months for more details.

After introductions by the co-sponsors, presenter Chi Chi Wu began the forum with a one-hour presentation on prioritizing debt and access to financial services for immigrants. The next hour was spent on a lively discussion on a number of consumer issues that forum participants had seen in their communities, such as immigration consultant fraud, tax assistance scams, abuse of immigrants by attorneys, and problems with pre-paid phone cards.