Join Us in the Fight #ForOurFamilies

“...our country is at its absolute strongest when we prioritize keeping families safe and together.

Today, we’re launching a new campaign to fight #ForOurFamilies—for every family, because our country is at its absolute strongest when we prioritize keeping families safe and together. For immigrant families, that can only be achieved if we ensure they have a pathway to citizenship, and that is why we are launching this effort by focusing on a pathway #ForOurFamilies.

This campaign is focused on family, because at it core, that is what immigration is all about. Mothers and fathers risking everything to travel thousands of miles in search of a better life for their families, for their children and grandchildren. Immigrant families from across the world have helped strengthen America’s communities and economy for generations, infusing the U.S. with their creativity, energy, and ingenuity. But far too many of these people, including millions working on the front lines to combat the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, are trapped by an immigration system that has locked millions of people in undocumented status. People who have no pathway to citizenship, and are at risk of being separated from the families. And for the last four years the Trump Administration has weaponized our existing immigration system to attack immigrants and separate millions of families, threatening everyone’s safety by destabilizing our communities and economic prosperity.

True, inclusive recovery for our nation means we must restore opportunity and dignity for all Americans, including immigrants.

For our country to fully respond and recover from this crisis, we have to keep families together, by ensuring a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented community that will allow everyone to fully contribute to their communities. Today, mired in a public health and economic crisis, we know that the pathway back to recovery for families is being built by millions of essential, frontline workers, many of whom are trapped and stuck as undocumented by our broken immigration system. True, inclusive recovery for our nation means we must restore opportunity and dignity for all Americans, including immigrants.  

This isn’t just about fighting for the immigrants who have risked their lives to help our communities survive the pandemic: 8 million U.S. citizens live with a family member who is undocumented, threatening whole families with instability and insecurity across our communities. These are people living and working as our neighbors, raising their children in our communities, and filling the congregations of our houses of worship. Our country will never be able to recover fully from the devastation of this pandemic, or the cruelty of the last four years, without ensuring that these families and millions more can stay safely together. We need a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants already contributing to our communities and our country. This will grow our economy, restore immigrants’ dignity to work and live, and keep our families together. 

We know that our families and our country will be safer and stronger when we ensure a pathway for the undocumented to earn citizenship.

America has a long and horrifying history of separating families, starting with the original sin of slavery and continued under our immigration and criminal justice systems through democratic and republican administrations. Since the first moments of his campaign, nothing has defined President Trump more than his attacks on immigrants, centered on his threats and efforts to separate families—from the border to every corner of America. The President took a long failed immigration system and weaponized it.The opposition to these policies has been overwhelming, but the solution must go beyond merely reversing the terrible damage done over the last 4 years. We must transform our entire immigration system to one that is centered on what is best for our families, and treats everyone with dignity and respect. That must start with a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented community, in order to keep millions of families safe and together to build the future that we all deserve.

We know that our families and our country will be safer and stronger when we ensure a pathway for the undocumented to earn citizenship. We know our families and our country will be more prosperous when immigrants are able to fully contribute to our communities and economy. And we know that we will never be able to recover from the economic and public health crisis caused by COVID-19 unless immigrant families can fully contribute. That is what this campaign will be fighting for and we know we can do it, #ForOurFamilies, together.

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