webinar

Supporting Immigrant Youth to Thrive

An Action-Focused Discussion

Immigrant youth are targeted by an onslaught of hostile actions designed to disrupt the safety and security of their families and communities and bar their access to education and economic wellbeing.

Past Event

DATE

September 25, 2025

TIME

4-5p ET / 1-2p PT

LOCATION

Virtual

To find solutions in this uniquely challenging environment, we have to listen to immigrant youth leaders. Join GTY and the TYP Collaborative to hear our panel share their experiences and recommendations on how we can hold the line for immigrant youth now—and hold steadfast to a collective vision of a welcoming and equitable future.

We’ll discuss:

  • How current policies and conditions are impacting immigrant youth and families
  • The leadership and resilience immigrant youth are demonstrating in response
  • Recommendations for philanthropy, policymakers, and communities to better support immigrant youth

This program is free and open to grantmakers and others in the thriving youth community. GTY’s webinars and funder learning opportunities are made possible through the time and expertise of presenters from the field.

In the spirit of transparency, GTY will make available the list of webinar participants to presenters upon request, unless the registrant requests to remain anonymous (please indicate your preference via the registration form).

Speakers

Morelys Urbano

Columbia University

Morelys Urbano is a Dominican journalist author, poet, and graduate student at Columbia University and a recent graduate of Morgan State University, where she received the President’s Second Mile Award for her service and leadership. At Morgan, she helped secure a partnership with TheDream.US and raised $40,000 for paid internships for undocumented students. Her work spans politics, broadcast, and investigative reporting; she hosted the award-winning show No Borders, Just Flavors!, contributed to the Emmy-winning documentary History of a National Treasure, and published articles in the Morgan Journalism Review, which became part of the university’s Latin American studies curriculum.

She has also interned with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and has been recognized as an “Emerging Leader of the Immigrant Community” by the Mayor of Baltimore in 2022, and as a 2025 SUCCESS Award recipient by the President’s Alliance for Higher Education and the University of Chicago.

Karely Amaya Rios

CUNY School of Law

Karely Amaya Rios is a first-generation Latina pursuing a law degree at CUNY School of Law. Growing up in a low-income immigrant community in Southern California, she witnessed firsthand the impact of anti-immigrant policies on her family and community. Karely is a transformational leader committed to advocating for marginalized individuals and hopes to build bridges between policies and communities of color.

During her undergraduate and graduate studies at UCLA, she focused on grassroots organizing to advance immigrant rights in California. One of her proudest achievements was co-founding Immigrant Justice in Action Coalition (formerly known as Undocumented Student-Led Network) and spearheading the Opportunity For All Campaign, which aims to ensure equal access to campus job opportunities for all students, regardless of immigration status. Karely is passionate about the intersections of immigrant rights with health, labor, and education, and is committed to building solidarity across movements.

Andrea Anaya

New Deal for Youth, National Collaborative for Transformative Youth Policy

Andrea Anaya (She/Her/Ella) is a first-generation Salvadoran, a New Deal for Youth Changemaker, and a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University pursuing a Master of Science in Public Policy & Management. She is deeply passionate about advancing education and immigration equity, with a focus on expanding access to resources for immigrant youth and low-income families. Andrea has worked with organizations such as United We Dream, the President’s Alliance on Higher Education & Immigration, and most recently, Immigrants Rising, where she led career-readiness and entrepreneurship workshops for immigrant youth in Montgomery County, MD. Her leadership and advocacy have been recognized nationally as a Dream Summer Fellow, Newman Civic Fellow, and Public Policy & International Affairs Fellow.

Iliana G. Perez, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Immigrants Rising

An esteemed leader in the field of immigrant entrepreneurship, Dr. Perez (she/her) brings over a decade of experience as a researcher and advocate for immigrant rights to her role at Immigrants Rising. She has pioneered initiatives to empower and support undocumented entrepreneurs through resource development, training, and ecosystem building across the U.S.

Dr. Perez holds a B.A. in mathematics from Fresno State, as well as an M.A. in economics and a Ph.D. in education policy from Claremont Graduate University. Her academic research, which has focused on immigrant entrepreneurs, the occupational and educational attainment of immigrant students, and the economics of immigration, has been widely cited in academic journals, technical reports, and online publications. She has also served as a lecturer in the Labor Studies Department at UCLA and in the School of Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University.

Dr. Perez immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico with her family at the age of eight. She grew up in the California Central Valley and was undocumented for 27 years before adjusting her status.

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