Urge Congress to Reunite and Keep All Immigrant Families Together
We are at a pivotal moment in the immigrant justice movement where we can make meaningful, lasting changes to the U.S. immigration system for the first time in decades. While both houses of Congress have a Democratic majority, we must act quickly to pass compassionate immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship for millions!
Please join our letter campaign to send a letter to your Congressional representatives about the urgent need for immigration reform that prioritizes the safety and dignity of all immigrants and provides a path for families to thrive together! Every letter sent makes a difference!
Background: With new leadership in both the legislative and executive branches, for the first time in decades, we have the chance to pass immigration reform that would impact the lives of millions of Americans. However, advocates must make our demands known. The family immigration system in the United States has not been updated for over 20 years, keeping millions of people apart from their loved ones as they remain stuck in visa backlogs for years and even decades. 11 million immigrants -- including farmworkers, essential workers, DACA recipients, and TPS holders -- continue to wait for the ability to attain permanent residency. All immigrants deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and to have a permanent place to call home.
Our response:
As part of the national Value Our Families coalition, OPAWL and other VoF member organizations in Ohio are working hard to advocate for immigrant families and ensure that we promote a fair, equitable immigration system. We don’t always hear Ohio and Midwestern immigrant stories as often as stories from other regions, but these stories matter. It is important for Ohio lawmakers to hear about how we can act to make sure our immigration system is rooted in empathy, justice and love.
We're building a broad coalition of Ohioans who are willing to advocate, act and speak up in solidarity with all immigrants. We want to unite Ohioans around asking our Members of Congress to support the following:
- Reuniting Families Act - clears the family and employment-based visa backlogs, and provides relief for orphans, widows and equal treatment to stepchildren, enforcement relief to keep families together, eliminates LGBTQ discrimination in the immigration system and embraces the diversity visa program
- Pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, DACA recipients, and TPS holders, including those with past criminal records
- Decreased funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents and reduced funding for the administration’s overall immigration enforcement and detention operations
- GRACE Act - ensures refugee admissions does not drop below 125,000 per year
- New Way Forward Act - ends mandatory immigration detention, ending automatic pipelines to deportation through the criminal legal system
