Friday, Nov. 19th, 2021
Washington, D.C — Today’s passage of the Build Back Better Act in the House includes parole, a temporary relief provision that would last for five years and could be renewed once, up until September 30, 2031. But we at UndocuBlack are clear: Temporary solutions are not enough and the 2010 green card registry is the only option for Congress to deliver a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants this year.
Our communities have lived in limbo and uncertainty through flimsy, Band-Aid solutions to festering wounds, and parole is just a temporary salve in spite of our demand for permanency in this country. Our communities have waited for more than 30 years, keeping the country afloat during a deadly global pandemic and fighting through four years of constant attacks from the Trump administration. We have not reached this point in the fight for permanent protections to be handed anything less than green cards for our people. Our communities cannot afford to wait for another election cycle (or multiple) for Congress to open up a new, direct pathway to citizenship.
For nearly six months, immigrant rights advocates have split up our resources, capacity, and strategy trying to meet urgent community needs while fighting for the rights of our communities to have permanent protection. The members of our immigrant communities who have been able to naturalize, U.S. born children of immigrants, and millions of Black and Brown people showed up to vote in record-breaking numbers during the 2020 elections, elections that placed a Democratic President in power and handed Democrats the majority in Congress. In exchange for our efforts, we demanded Democrats reject the xenophobic and racist agenda of the four years prior to honor the work, lives, and dignity of the Black and Brown people that placed them in power.
“We at UndocuBlack are clear: Temporary solutions are not enough and the 2010 green card registry is the only option for Congress to deliver a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants this year.”
Instead, we have been met with the same tired tale from Democrats. We demanded the defunding of law enforcement, from the police to ICE and CBP. We demanded Democrats decriminalize immigration, to stop punishing our over-policed and over-incarcerated communities. We demanded a pathway to citizenship for millions of people who have been essential in keeping the United States on its feet during a global pandemic, people who lost family members, friends, loved ones, people who were unhoused, and yet received absolutely no federal aid. Yet, Democrats are once again choosing to operate as passive agents of white supremacy by refusing to act boldly. Democrats convinced themselves that because they were not providing exclusive interviews on Fox News and calling us criminals, rapists, and people from shit-hole countries, that they are somehow agents of change. They have the power to move the country forward, but they choose not to wield it. That is the height of cowardice.
Because House Democrats have rejected a pathway to citizenship for paltry parole, threatened to cut immigrant access to government assistance programs, chosen to continue funding and increase funding for law enforcement, they have continued to manifest the politics of whiteness and the endemic racism that this country was founded on. The same government officials who were chastising Trump are now doing exactly what he intended to do: harming immigrants, poor people, and marginalized communities. *
Democratic leadership must use the power of their majority to do all it takes to keep the promises made to undocumented communities. It is now up to the Democrats in the Senate to reinsert the 2010 green card registry in the reconciliation bill, defend the pathway from anti-immigrant amendments, and make sure the bill passes through Congress. The UndocuBlack Network unequivocally opposes parole, and demands that green cards and a pathway to citizenship be passed through the Build Back Better Act. We will see it done on behalf of our communities.
