Immigration

The United States is a nation founded and started by groups of immigrants. Yet, to take a stance that anyone who immigrates to the U.S. for the purpose of seeking asylum is committing a crime and then, dehumanizing undocumented immigrants by calling them “illegal,” and “aliens,” is one that goes directly against the fabric of our nation and the intent of our founding fathers. At the time, we as new immigrant communities believed that all people are created equal and that all should be equally allowed to pursue life, liberty and justice.

The current situation with the detention centers at the Mexican border is a visible reflection of how we’ve forgotten who we are, how we started as a nation and what our thread and spirit is as a nation. With these detention centers having sub-human living conditions and displaying blatant disregard and neglect for these undocumented immigrants, we’re not really being American, because that’s not what being American means. Being American looks like closing these detention centers, immediately, and quickly transitioning these asylum seekers into an asylum track permanent residence and/or citizenship track program, an issue and action that shouldn’t be partisan at all. It’s common sense.

We started as a nation of immigrants and we will continue to exist for the support of all people, including immigrants, because we acknowledge our equality as well as the notion that no one soul is less than another.

We need to process the backlog of asylum cases more quickly by funding the judiciary to do so.

We can help transition undocumented immigrants into job training and other economic opportunities, which would already increase what they contribute to our nation anyway.

The rate of their contributions, in fields ranging from the arts to science to academia, is among the highest of any subpopulation, whether measured culturally, academically, or economically. Children born of immigrants are more likely to go to college and get a degree and less likely to live in poverty. As of 2016, it’s been shown that in fact, immigrants contributed around $2 trillion to our GDP. Additionally, rather than competing with U.S. workers, research has shown their skills tend to complement them.

Further, undocumented immigrants also contribute to Medicare and Social Security -- without reaping many of the benefits. As recently as 2010, research shows undocumented immigrants paid $13 billion into Social Security but only received $1 billion in services. And they paid over $35 billion more into Medicare than they withdrew between 2000 and 2011. They also pay over $11 billion a year in state and local taxes.

So, it’s only fair that we allow them equal access to healthcare, because it’s a basic human right. Immigrants contribute, and have always contributed, for the better in our economy and free market.

The current issue at the border isn’t the sudden influx of immigrants, it’s what we can do on a macro level in addressing the refugee situation in Latin America. We can address this by talking with leaders of those underlying and related countries to see what we can all do, be and work together towards, in establishing peace, justice and humanitarian care and relief for all. We can all work together as independent nations who exist each for the love of their people. For, if there’s no love, why would there be the need for government?

We need to be more strategic in addressing the drug cartels by having more developed, high level operations that address these drug cartels and not oppress masses of people and souls. This must all stop now.

ICE MUST BE ABOLISHED

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was created in 2003, in the same suite of post-9/11 legislation as the Patriot Act and the Iraq War. Its founding was part of an unchecked expansion of executive powers that led to the widespread erosion of Americans’ civil rights. Unlike prior immigration enforcement under the INS, ICE operates outside the scope of the Department of Justice and is unaccountable to our nation’s standards of due process.

Now we see the consequences: young children are being ripped from their parents and kept in detention centers without due process and without accountability to Congress.

We must abolish ICE and see to it that our undocumented neighbors are treated with the dignity and respect owed to all people, regardless of citizenship status.

I will fight to:

Abolish ICE
Immediately close the detention centers at the Mexican border and transition those currently being detained to temporary housing, job training and other economic opportunity transition programs, and/or a refugee asylum seeking track to becoming a U.S. permanent resident or U.S. citizen
Provide equal universal healthcare access to undocumented immigrants
Reduce the cost of naturalization and increase resources to help people navigate that process more easily
Overturn the three- and ten-year re-entry bars – families should not be separated
Expand protections and naturalization to all undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children, regardless of their current age – they came here through no fault of their own and many are even unaware that they are undocumented
Make U.S. birthright citizenship something that can never be threatened or revoked
Fund and authorize vast increases in immigration judges to move through our backlog of asylum seekers and other related cases
Expand protections for LGBTQIA+ immigrants and asylum seekers, who experience discrimination here as well as in their countries of origin
Assure that all constitutional protections and due process are available to undocumented immigrants when it comes to deportation issues
Increase border security intelligently through electronic surveillance and more patrol agents
Draft, introduce and/or actively support legislation that seeks to remove the politicization of the U.S. Supreme Court bench

WE ARE ALL IMMIGRANTS

My parents immigrated to the U.S. in 1984 from South Korea and I know all too well the hardships and discrimination 1st generation and 2nd generation immigrant families encounter. On the flip side, I also can’t deny the many amazing people, policies and communities that proved the very opposite, in breathing life into and empowering us, every step of the way as well. And it is this America that we must continue to be, where despite our shortcomings in a racial divide that runs deep to the beginning of our nation’s birth, with the conquest of Native American lands, to institutionalized slavery for a few centuries, we still rise up together, collectively, in the end, at the most crucial times, and act as a nation that truly love its people and all peoples of the world.And so, please join our movement in making America love again. We can do it altogether if we all try. Let’s do it. Together. Please vote and please help spread the word. A mass wave of change agents must be elected to Congress.