Immigration Voice responds to the introduction of the DREAM Act in the U.S. Senate
National non-profit group representing 1.3M legal immigrants, applauds the effort, however, calls out gaps in this legislation that hasn't yet addressed the impact on children of legal immigrants and that bill doesn't address the discriminatory per-country limits.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 5, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Immigration Voice, a national grassroots organization of over 1.3M, tax-paying and law-abiding high-skilled-immigrants who live and work in the United States, would like to issue the following statement on today's introduction of the DREAM Act in the U.S. Senate.
Immigration Voice applauds Senator Dick Durbin and Senator Graham for their efforts to draft bipartisan legislation to address the plight of the Dreamers. We would note, however, that over 1.3 million immigrants are permanently banned from obtaining the same green cards that will be provided under the Dream Act solely on the basis of discriminatory per-country limits that were placed into the immigration code many decades ago when there were still segregated public accommodations.
These same lawfully present immigrants who are working in medicine, engineering, research, and technology have children in the United States currently in legal status who will fall into illegal status through no fault of their own, and will not be protected by the DREAM Act.
The fix for this problem, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, passed the Senate and the House last year, and Senator Durbin has actually drafted language that, if included to the DREAM Act, will strengthen bipartisan support for passing the DREAM Act. We call on all Senators to insist that the Durbin-Lee version of the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act be added to the DREAM Act either in the Judiciary Committee or on the floor if there is to be consideration of the Dream Act in the Senate. It would be patently unjust to only address one aspect of the immigration system when people who are entirely banned from the immigration system altogether on the basis of their race, face the same exact deprivation. These problems must be solved together.
Immigration Voice will treat any effort to pass any immigration legislation that excludes repealing Per-country limits as an endorsement by those lawmakers of the current discriminatory and racist system, as there is no reason to refuse to add our legislation given that it is supported by all of Congress.
Media Contact
Vikram Desai, Immigration Voice, +1 202-386-6250, [email protected]
SOURCE Immigration Voice
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