A coalition of immigration groups rallied in Battery Park, New York on Monday to announce the next phase of the New Yorkers for Real Immigration Reform Campaign.
The campaign is a statewide campaign endorsed by 170 labor, business, faith, grassroots and immigrant organizations across the state and includes recommendations to the Obama Administration. The coalition includes among others: La Fuente, Make the Road New York, MinKwon Center for Community Action, New Sanctuary Movement, and New York Immigration Coalition,
“This is critical for four million immigrants in New York who live in fear of being separated from their families and millions more around the country,” said Steven Choi, executive director, New York Immigration Coalition. “The time is now to stop the political pandering and show Congress that our country cannot wait.”
“DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) has benefited hundreds of thousands of young people, we’ve seen people in our own communities get benefits, get jobs, able to travel on an airplane, and move forward in their career,” said May Lee, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association. ” But that’s not enough. For every one Chinese person who is eligible for DACA, many others are not eligible, sometime they came here when they were young, but they have been contributing to our communities. What we need is comprehensive immigration reform, and we want an extension of DACA to include those that have contributed to the community but lack a green card, a passport, and are living with fear of deportation after being here 10, 15, 20 years.”
In a related story, State Governors attending the National Governors Association meeting in Tennessee on Monday met privately with the Health and Human Service Secretary, Sylvia Matthews Burwell according to the Associated Press. The meeting was to rally support to host the thousands of children from Central America and Governors are concerned about the costs to states. More than 57,000 children have crossed the border unaccompanied since October 1, 2013; most are from Honduras, El Salvador or Guatemala. Under U.S. law, children who arrive unaccompanied are turned over to Health and Human Services Department when their countries don’t border on the United States.
The Real Immigration Reform Campaign includes proposals demanding an ease to the threat of deportation that millions of immigrants face daily, providing a pathway to citizenship, focusing on the family unit to keep families together, and work visas.