Asian Americans Advancing Justice to Congress: Do Your Job!
Congress Missed Opportunity to Help Undocumented Youth
Washington, DC — January 20, 2018 — President Trump and the Republicans would rather shut down the government than to provide a solution for 800,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. Their refusal to resolve the DACA crisis, created by the Trump administration, ignores the will of the American people, the majority of whom are in favor of providing a pathway to citizenship for our immigrant youth.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice, an affiliation of five civil rights organizations, issues the following statement:
“In support of Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant agenda, the majority of the Republican-led Congress has chosen to support and furlough hundreds of thousands of federal workers rather than negotiate to pass a clean DREAM Act that has bipartisan support to protect DACA recipients.
Congress also had the chance to provide an extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for six years, less than the 10 years advocates pushed for, that would have benefitted millions of the nation’s poorest children.
Eighty-seven percent of the American people overwhelmingly support giving immigrant youth a path to citizenship and will remember this moment as a time when Republicans chose to continue advancing racist and white supremacist demands on immigration rather than to negotiate in good faith to serve the American people.
It’s time for this Republican-led Congress to get serious and stop holding the lives of DACA recipients, CHIP recipients, and now federal workers, hostage for this administration’s anti-immigrant agenda. The overwhelming majority of Americans support all of these measures – it’s time for Congress to work for the interests of the American people.
The President and Republicans must learn how to govern instead of allowing extremists to dictate their agenda. We thank those Members of Congress and Senators, both Republican and Democrat, who are demanding a solution for undocumented youth now. We encourage them to remain strong.
Congress needs to pass the DREAM Act, reauthorize CHIP, and fund our government for more than a few weeks. We will not stop fighting for all of the communities that we represent, and we will resist against any deal that hurts immigrants.”
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Asian Americans Advancing Justice is a national affiliation of five leading organizations advocating for the civil and human rights of Asian Americans and other underserved communities to promote a fair and equitable society for all. The affiliation’s members are: Advancing Justice | AAJC (Washington, DC), Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus (San Francisco), Advancing Justice – Los Angeles, Advancing Justice – Atlanta, and Advancing Justice – Chicago.