STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD
July 15, 2021
Yesterday, Senate Democrats announced a $3.5 trillion infrastructure budget that includes a pathway to citizenship for immigrant youth, TPS holders, farm workers, and essential workers in the Senate budget resolution--a critical and encouraging step towards the fight for immigration.
Having immigration included within the reconciliation process brings us optimism because the reconciliation process allows for certain bills that meet defined rules to be exempt from the 60 vote threshold required by the Senate filibuster process. Bills that go through the reconciliation process can pass with a simple majority in the Senate--just 51 votes. It’s a process that has been used by both parties on a regular basis in the past few decades.
After decades of fruitless promises--that have only brought more deportations, restrictions of movement, and oppression to the undocumented community the time for Representatives to show up for our community is now. Our community can not withstand any further hesitation or straddling the fence where our lives are concerned. Thousands of Black immigrants have been displaced, abused, seperated from family, and unjustly deported while we waited for the change that was promised. Thousands of lives continue to be at stake. Performative solidarity from Representatives will no longer suffice.
The U.S. can not build back better without the inclusion of undocumented immigrants.
The time to solidify that is NOW.
“In 2021 many people have claimed to have had a racial reckoning, it is important that that racial reckoning includes those of us that face the brunt of racial injustice—Black undocumented people. The time to resolve the immigration crisis through a pathway to citizenship is now—before the next election cycle and before more politics gets involved.”—Patrice Lawrence Co-director.
THE UNDOCUBLACK NETWORK (UBN), founded in 2016, is a multigenerational network of currently and formerly undocumented Black people that fosters community, facilitates access to resources and contributes to transforming the realities of our people so we are thriving and living our fullest lives. UBN has chapters in New York City, the DC/MD/VA area, and Los Angeles, CA.
