From the PC(USA) Office of Immigration Issues:
House and Senate
Border and Immigration Bills to be Considered Today!
- Support adequate funding of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and keeping the protections afforded to children under the Trafficking Victims Protections Act (TVPRA).
- Oppose limiting the Administration’s power to extend deferred action from deportation to a wider group of migrants.
These bills will be considered today.
Please Call Today! The Capitol Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121
Border (ORR funding
and TVPRA)
The Senate and the House have proposed supplemental funding
bills that would fund the response to the increase in arrivals of unaccompanied
children from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
Both of these bills include requests that make it impossible
for this denomination to endorse them but that does not keep us from having a
voice on this issue.
The Senate bill, S.
2648 provides adequate funding to serve the children and
fully replenishes the $94 million of refugee social services funding that was
recently reprogrammed. Further, this bill leaves the TVPRA intact so that
children may remain in the US to make any humanitarian claims they may have.
Unfortunately, the amended version of this bill also funds Israel’s iron dome.
It is General Assembly
policy that the denomination only supports peaceful measures in the conflict
between Israel and Palestine.
The House bill includes the ill-labeled "HUMANE" Act, which
would eliminate vital protections given to unaccompanied children in the
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA). Changes to
the TVPRA would mean that children would not have a meaningful opportunity to
have their story heard, apply for asylum, or be cared for by child welfare
personnel, and would be deported to life-threatening situations.
As our leaders have provided us with
two bills - one that cannot be endorsed fully and another that should be
opposed, we are endorsing neither.
Rather, we place our hope in things yet unseen and ask for an increase
in ORR funding that is adequate to fund the refugee resettlement program AND
provide care for unaccompanied children. We further oppose any changes to the
protections given to children by the TVPRA.
Immigration Bill (Proposal to limit deferred action)
The House is also planning a vote on
a bill that is
aimed to limit the President’s ability to expand deferred action from
deportation to more individuals.
The PC(USA) opposes any measure that would limit this or any future
administration from extending deferred action from deportation to a larger
group of individuals.
