Business, family, labor leaders and Members of Congress to Sec. Mayorkas: “Act now”
WASHINGTON – For years, American employers and families have been calling on the Biden administration to expand access to work permits for long-term undocumented immigrants. On Friday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said he had received the message.
“I don’t think that we have ignored the voices domestically that have spoken of the fact that we have undocumented individuals in the United States who have been undocumented and without work authorization for years and years, and yet people who cross the border and make a claim of asylum can proceed for authorization within 180 days after filing their asylum claim,” said Secretary Mayorkas. “I don’t think we’ve ignored it at all, but Congress has not acted.”
Reports Rafael Bernal in The Hill: “That inaction is weighing on large cities where long-term immigrants lacking permanent legal status often watch newer arrivals wait just weeks or months for paperwork that has been out of their reach for decades.”
Across the United States, members of Congress, the American Business Immigration Coalition and American Families United have been calling on the Biden administration to extend work permits to the spouses of U.S. citizens and others who have lived, worked and contributed to the U.S. for decades. Jump to the list of recent events.
Meanwhile, a Wall Street Journal poll has former President Trump leading President Biden in six of seven of the most competitive states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, and Pennsylvania — and tied in Wisconsin. Trump even leads Biden with Latino voters, 52-48%. Polling from Lake Research Partners/ABIC shows that extending work permits to spouses of U.S. citizens is highly popular among every member of the coalition that propelled Biden to victory in 2020. It is also a huge motivator among voters in mixed-status families, whose numbers exceed the 2020 margins of victory in each of the seven states noted above, as well as Florida.
This weekend on The Last Word, Congressman Robert Garcia (D-CA) spoke out against the demonization of people like the men who lost their lives on Baltimore’s Key Bridge. “Those men that died on that bridge were heroes. Those were the kind of man that I grew up with,” he said. “Immigrants contribute so much to local economies and all of our states across the country… You have folks that are completing graduate degrees, folks from other countries that are here contributing and everything from folks who are going to college to folks who are out there paving our roads, our streets, our bridges. We know the only way our economy can work is with immigrants.”
Recent “Here To Work” events
- Republican Governor Joe Lombardo of Nevada and business and community leaders added their voices to the call at a roundtable in Las Vegas.
- Senate Majority Whip Durbin (D-IL) led a letter signed by eighteen other senators including battleground Senators Warnock (D-GA), Rosen (D-NV), and Fetterman (D-PA) calling on the Biden administration to extend work permits to undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens and provide stability “to the American businesses, communities, and families who rely on them.”
- 86 college-age Dreamers without DACA and legal work permits) from MI, PA, GA, NV, NC, FL, TX, IN, IA, MA, WA, CA, IL, NJ, NY, convened in Chicago for “Dreamers of Today” Summit – a leadership and organizing retreat to advocate for work permits for themselves and their parents; including social media influencer Che, who published a recap
- While applauding the administration’s decision to extend the validity of work permits for people already granted access, Congressmen Chuy Garcia (D-IL) called on the President to also “expand access to work permits for new arrivals and long-term immigrants, and build an immigration system rooted in dignity and opportunity.”
- Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson spoke up alongside dozens of family and community leaders at an event ABIC co-sponsored with The Resurrection Project.
- Two dozen construction and other business leaders sent a letter to President Biden, asking him to “honor the honest labor of Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, Miguel Luna, Jose Mynor Lopez, and Carlos Hernández” — the men who died on Baltimore’s Key Bridge in a devastating workplace accident — by extending work permits to undocumented immigrants. The letter was released during a press conference with CASA, business, and labor leaders.
- U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX) spoke in favor of the plan at a roundtable in Irving.
- Colorado families with mixed immigration status applauded Senator Michael Bennet’s (D-CO) leadership on the issue.
- North Carolina’s Iliana Santillan, Executive Director of El Pueblo and Juvencio Rocha-Peralta, Executive Director of Association of Mexicans published an op-ed in the Observer that read, “This single-minded focus on the border is not helping North Carolina. People who have arrived recently certainly deserve the right to work and take care of their families while their asylum cases advance in court. And so do long-term residents of our state and country.”
- Arizona leaders spoke out against the anti-immigrant HB 2748 legislation and called for federal action on work permits instead.
According to FWD.US, 11.3 million U.S. citizens live with an undocumented person, and 1.1 million are married to an undocumented person – many for a decade or more. Meanwhile, the U.S. is dealing with a severe worker shortage. Even if every unemployed person in the country found a job, there would still be nearly 3 million open jobs across the United States.
While mixed-status families already contribute billions in federal, state, and local taxes, FWD.US estimates that permitting undocumented spouses to work legally would increase their tax contributions by $5 billion.
Legal scholars at Cornell University have outlined a path for the Biden administration that requires two simple updates to current policy. Said Marielena Hincapie, one of the authors of the proposal, to The Hill, ”The country and the news cycles have been all occupied with what’s happening on the border. And you know, what happened on the bridge in Baltimore, it’s just another reminder of, you know, in addition to what’s happening at the border, and there are millions of people who are impacted by immigration and immigrants are part of our families, our communities, our schools or our workplaces, and this is an opportunity for the Biden administration to use existing authorities.”
Hundreds of leaders representing U.S business, labor, local government, faith, civil rights, and family voices are backing this policy change, in addition to Senators and Members of Congress. Learn more at heretowork.us.
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