Brooklyn Public Library To Host 'Love Yourself' Town Hall On DACA

PROSPECT HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — Musicians, politicians and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — or DACA — advocates will gather at the Brooklyn Public Library Thursday for a town hall on immigrant rights entitled, “Love Yourself.”

Brooklyn assembly members, city council members and state senators will host the DACA and Civil Rights Town Hall, open to the public, at the Dweck Center at 10 Grand Army Plaza at 5:30 p.m., officials announced.

The fate of DACA — the Obama administration initiative that protects immigrants who came to the United States as minors from deportation — remains unclear after President Donald Trump rescinded the program in September.

Immigration policy debate spurred a federal government shutdown last weekend, and the president and New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer continue to battle for a border wall and preservation of DACA, respectively.

On Thursday, a panel of elected officials, immigration advocates and legal experts will update attendees on their progress fighting in New York City to protect DACA, Temporary Protected Status, and New York’s DREAM Act, officials said.

The goal of the town hall is to “empower our young adults through education, cultural programming, and the promotion of peace and community through unity,” according to a statement from Assemblyman Walter T. Mosley, who represents Fort Greene and Clinton Hill.

Mosley will join a panel of speakers that includes the singer/songwriter Maimouna Youssef, WBLS radio host Dahved Levy, music video director Ralph McDaniels, Lumuba Bandele of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund. Medgar Evers College professor Dr. John Flateau, Edwige Menard of the city’s Commission on Human Rights.

The discussion will be moderated by WBLS Radio host Raqiyah Mays.

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images News/Getty Images