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Explained: Immigration, Title 42, & AOC |
You may have heard a lot of talk about immigration recently. So what's going on?
Title 42 expired last week. Title 42 was a law used by the Trump administration to quickly expel immigrants, under the pretense of the COVID-19 pandemic. With Title 42 gone, immigration is likely to increase.
To address the expected influx at the border, President Biden announced new immigration policies, including a transit ban that would ban migrants for 5 years if they don’t first seek refugee status in the country they are traveling through on their way to the U.S. Several of these policies are based on the belief that if you make it deeply difficult for migrants to come here, then they’ll stop.
Respectfully, we disagree. From a policy perspective, there’s not a lot of evidence a deterrence-only strategy works (under Title 42 immigration actually increased). Plus, our country needs to add to our workforce to meet the labor demand. We need immigration.
Alexandria is advocating for a different way. Last week, Alexandria led a letter to President Biden asking him to shorten the waiting period for asylum seekers to obtain work authorization permits.1
Asylum seekers who have already arrived in the U.S. must currently wait at least 6 months to work legally — with many waiting up to a full year. This doesn’t make any sense. These migrants want to work, our country needs their labor, and, when recently arrived migrants can’t work, it overburdens nonprofits and local governments.
This type of compassionate immigration reform isn’t a niche idea — work authorization reform has support across the ideological spectrum of the Democratic Party, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
We at Team AOC believe seeking asylum is a human right. A compassionate immigration system is necessary to make our country strong. We will keep you updated on how this story progresses, and how Alexandria and Democrats are responding.
In solidarity,
Team AOC
Alexandria and Team AOC are committed to making important, complex policy issues accessible to everyone.
1 - Axios: New York Dems push Biden to loosen job rules for asylum seekers
