John, 

Did you know that the last time our federal government granted permanent legal status to undocumented immigrants was in 1986 — for all immigrants who arrived before 1972? Since then, no other administration has created permanent protected status for immigrants. 

With Democrats holding unified control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for only a few more weeks, the prospect of passing permanent protections is rapidly slipping away. This lame duck session, Congress must pass a pathway to citizenship — another chance won’t come for years, which is far too long to keep Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients, immigrant youth, and millions of people’s lives in limbo. 

The Immigration Control and Reform Act (IRCA) of 1986 was the most comprehensive immigration reform law that had been passed in decades, granting over 2.7 million immigrants permanent legal status. But it also had negative implications for immigrants who arrived after 1972 and were ineligible for citizenship under IRCA. President Ronald Reagan’s act placed sanctions on employers who hired undocumented workers, creating a much more precarious reality for immigrants who arrived after IRCA’s cutoff period. 

Although the bipartisan passage of IRCA was an important victory for the immigrant rights movement, little progress has been made since 1986 to enact permanent protections and a pathway to citizenship for all 11 million immigrants who call America home and are currently without any legal status. 

In early October, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the 2012 memorandum that created the DACA program is unlawful and returned the case to a lower court for further consideration of President Biden’s 2022 DACA regulation. Then on October 17, Judge Andrew Hanen announced that he would block new and lapsed DACA applications from being processed. Despite contributing to our country, raising families, and paying taxes, DACA recipients remain under constant threat by politicians who continue to use immigrants as political pawns and by conservative courts.

The future of our immigrant communities should be enshrined in our nation’s laws. Our elected leaders in Washington must act now to provide permanent legal protections to DACA and TPS recipients, immigrant youth, and all those who call our country home, but lack a pathway to permanent residency and citizenship.

In community,

Murad Awawdeh