Immigration Reform August 2021
Why is immigration reform important? An estimated 10.5 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States and could be deported because of their lack of legal status.1 That number has declined since 2014. Approximately two-thirds have lived in the United States for more than a decade. 2 These individuals and their families participate in the workforce and contribute to their communities. However, they are at risk of mistreatment and exploitation because of their legal status, not to mention constantly at risk of deportation. Trying to deport millions of people to their home country would be unworkable and only serve to fragment families and harm local communities. Immigration reform should include a legalization process that would provide protections for these vulnerable individuals and their families, as it would allow undocumented persons to integrate as full participants in American life and society. While the existing immigration system is mostly family-based with procedures that help reunite and keep families together, immediate family members of legal permanent residents often must wait ten years or longer to legally join their loved ones in the U.S. In recent years, there have been efforts to dismantle the family-based immigration system, which the Catholic Church opposes.3 It is critical to maintain an emphasis on family unity in the immigration system and craft legislation that will protect and strengthen family-based immigration.
What should immigration reform legislation include? In their 2003 pastoral statement Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope,4 the U.S. Catholic bishops outlined five principles of migration and highlighted the need for systemic reforms.5 To this end, the Catholic Church in the U.S. has consistently advocated for immigration reform legislation that will: 1. Ensure access to permanent legal status and a path to citizenship for current residents. Given the millions of hardworking, undocumented persons already living in the United States—some for many years—legalization provisions are a necessary part of any reform. At a minimum, these should cover Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS)/Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) holders, migrant agricultural workers, and other undocumented essential workers. 2. Reaffirm and prioritize family unity and reunification. Any reform legislation should contain language that strengthens families and maintains the long-standing family unity emphasis in immigration law. Such family-focused policies include: (1) measures that establish legal pathways and waivers that enable families to maintain unity or restore it for those families already torn apart; (2) removal of the three- and ten-year bars to lawful immigration; (3) utilizing prior, unused family-based immigration visas; and (4) mechanisms that will clear current backlogs and ensure timely family reunification. 3. Reform the immigration detention system. Immigration reform legislation should eliminate the use of detention as a method of deterrence, end the use of for-profit corporations in immigration detention, reserve detention only for individuals who are national security or public safety threats, expand and prioritize community-based alternatives to detention (ATDs), which ensure immigration compliance in a humane way, and include other reforms that aptly protect vulnerable migrants and their families. Immigration Reform
1