More Than A Magazine, A Movement
This holiday could give us a chance to start over with a national conversation on immigration that is unifying, rather than polarizing.
Such a conversation starts with identifying shared values and employing active listening. This is also an opportunity to bring our values as feminists to the table.
With humanitarian crises in Afghanistan, Haiti and at the border, the U.S. must reassess what kind of lasting policy changes would prepare us to protect refugees and other vulnerable people in need around the world.
There must be more measures that allow for temporary and permanent protection within the country, more deliberate and sustained efforts to promote good government and economic opportunity internationally and a commitment to address the regional ebb and flow of migration to the U.S.
The Senate has just passed a $3.5 trillion budget resolution designed to bring to fruition many of President Biden’s campaign promises to improve the lives of families and children, including a $105 billion allocation of funds to create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
The next steps are fraught with difficulty, but still, this is an incredibly important first step towards offering almost 11 million people—47 percent of whom are women—a chance at legal status and ultimately, citizenship.
Currently, 26.3 million refugees are hoping to be resettled. Raising the cap sends a signal the U.S. recognizes the depth of need and encourages other countries to do the same—something President Biden acknowledged back on Day 16.
To refuse to increase the number now, but instead release new targets incrementally, will make it more difficult for refugees, resettlement agencies and communities to plan and prepare for refugee arrivals.
Protecting asylum seekers is a woman’s issue of the first order.
Asylum seekers in and of themselves are not a “crisis” for the U.S., nor is an increase in the flow of undocumented immigrants generally—as long as the resources are made available to humanely manage the flow of people.
A new Biden executive order provides a blueprint for rebuilding the badly damaged U.S Refugee Admissions Program. The order reflects the consensus among refugee resettlement and other humanitarian groups that the USRAP must not only be revived, but renewed.
The second round of executive actions on immigration, signed by President Biden this week, send a clear message that the Biden administration intends to tackle the immense structural damage caused to U.S. immigration policies by the Trump administration.
In his latest effort to reset America’s immigration policies, President Biden introduced a new legislative proposal to dramatically overhaul the immigration system: The U.S. Citizenship Act. The proposal focuses on eliminating current visa backlogs, increasing opportunities for temporary legal employment, strengthening worker protections and addressing the root causes of migration from Central America.
In an extraordinary series of executive orders and other actions taken on Inauguration Day, President Joe Biden reset the focus of the nation’s immigration system, directing the country’s attention to the value and importance of welcoming immigrants.
This is a sharp contrast to the last four years, in which the Trump administration sought at every turn to demonize immigrants, portray the nation as under attack from outsiders, and bang the drum for nativism and extremism.
The Trump administration is poised to authorize no more than 15,000 refugee admissions to the United States for Fiscal Year 2021—yet another historically low entry in President Trump’s effort to destroy the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.
