Our broken immigration system has forced too many to live in the shadows even as they contribute to our nation’s economy. Rather than work to make our system better, President Trump has launched a vicious assault on immigrant children and families.
We are a nation of immigrants-some by choice and some by force. Immigrants and their families should feel welcomed, safe, and free in the United States.
We need to implement compassionate reforms designed to keep families together, expand opportunities for permanent legal immigration, and address the root causes of emigration.
Click here for our full 2020 Election Platform
Thanks to a nationwide campaign, the Dream and Promise Act has now passed the House. The legislation is designed to provide permanent protections for Dreamers and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders.
Ever since taking office, the Trump administration has been trying to strip away TPS provisions -- long-standing legal protections from more than a million immigrants — including many 1199 members, who came to the U.S. decades ago and have been working in healthcare ever since.
Our political focus now shifts to the Senate and passing the DREAM and SECURE Acts there to protect the future of our sisters and brothers who do not yet have permanent status in the United States.
Many of our healthcare co-workers are TPS holders. The TPS program is a long-standing humanitarian provision that allows people to live and work in the US during in the aftermath of a natural disaster or outbreak of conflict in their home country.
These eight countries are currently designated for TPS: Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and South Sudan.
Thanks to legal battles taking place in various states, work authorizations for nationals of six of these countries (excluding Syria and South Sudan) have now been extended through January 4th, 2021.
Another program that has been threatened is Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA). This a measure put in place by the Obama administration to protect some of those who came to the US as children before their 16th birthday. It is estimated that about 800,000 people currently benefit from DACA, and many of them are 1199 members or their children.
DACA holders are a specific group within a larger population of “Dreamers” -- estimated 3.6 million people -- who were brought to the US by their parents before their 18th birthday. They do not have formal status, but most have grown up here and attended school here.
The name comes from The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act which was introduced in 2001, and re-introduced several times, but never passed.
The Dream and Promise Act would provide security to members of all of these groups who are currently facing forcible removal back to countries where most of them have few remaining family ties or economic prospects, having come to the US many years ago.
Did your Representative already sign on to co-sponsor the bill? Here’s a list of those who did. If your Representative is on the list, it is still worth calling them to say “Thank You!” All the calls are tracked and it Representatives do take notice when people from their districts call in.
Florida
Kathy Castor
Charlie Crist
Val Butler Demings
Theodore Deutch
Lois Frankel
Alcee Hastings
Al Lawson
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell
Stephanie Murphy
Donna Shalala
Darren Soto
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Frederica Wilson
Maryland
Anthony Brown
Elijah Cummings
Steny Hover
Jamie Raskin
Dutch Ruppersberger
John Sarbanes
David Trone
Massachusetts
Katherine Clark
William Keating
Joseph Kennedy
Stephen Lynch
James McGovern
Seth Moulton
Richard Neal
Ayanna Pressley
Lori Trahan
New Jersey
Josh Gottheimer
Andy Kim
Tom Malinowski
Donald Norcross
Frank Pallone
Bill Pascrell
Mikie Sherill
Albio Sires
Jefferson Van Drew
Bonnie Watson Coleman
New York
Yvette Clarke
Antonio Delgado
Eliot Engel
Adriano Espillat
Brian Higgins
Hakeem Jeffries
Nita Lowey
Carolyn Maloney
Sean Patrick Maloney
Gregory Meeks
Grace Meng
Joseph Morelle
Jerrold Nadler
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Kathleen Rice
Max Rose
Jose Serrano
Thomas Suozzi
Paul Tonko
Nydia Velazquez
Washington, D.C.
Eleanor Holmes-Norton
LABOR LEADERS AND ACTIVISTS TURN OUT FOR IMMIGRANTS
July 5, 2018
Whether it was Lower Manhattan or in Los Angeles, labor leaders and activists took to the streets to protest the White House’s immigration policies.
PRES. GRESHAM: ALL MEN AND WOMEN ARE CREATED EQUAL. NOW IS THE TIME FOR WASHINGTON TO ACT LIKE IT
January 12, 2018
New York, NY -1199SEIU President George Gresham today released the following statement regarding President Trump’s recent comments about immigration from Africa and the Caribbean:
STATEMENT ON NAZI RALLY IN CHARLOTTESVILLE
August 14, 2017
The neo-Nazi led and racist fueled violence rally in Charlottesville, VA is a shocking act of terror. But, this is nothing we have not seen in our country’s history before. Torches carried by the terror group mirror KKK and Nazi rallies that have occurred across our country, dating back to the 19th century.
