Dear Senator,
On behalf of the 63 affiliates of the AFL-CIO that represent more than 15 million working people, I urge you to support the SECURE Act of 2025 (S. 2106). This bill would provide a long-overdue path to citizenship for valued members of our communities, our workforce and our unions with Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
More than one million TPS holders help to feed, serve, build, and care for our country. Many of them have lived in the U.S. for decades, building families, owning homes, working legally, paying taxes, and undergoing regular background checks. Now, the rug is being pulled out from under them as the administration abruptly terminates their status and work authorization, without regard to dangerous conditions in their countries of origin, putting families in impossible situations.
In a time of unprecedented attacks against working people, the systematic termination of TPS and other forms immigration relief, such as humanitarian parole, are already resulting in job losses and disruptions across key industries. These will only grow. Rather than benefitting the remaining workforce, mass deportations amidst an already tight labor market will shutter businesses, disrupt supply chains, drive up costs for consumers, and put jobs at risk.
For these reasons and many more, the mass deportation agenda is not just bad for immigrants, but for every worker in this country. Recent estimates by the Economic Policy Institute suggest that the mass deportation agenda will destroy 6 million jobs in our country.1 Immigrant workers will bear the brunt of this impact, but their co-workers will also suffer, with nearly half of the job losses hitting American citizens. The real threat workers face is corporate greed, not immigrants. Extending permanent protections to TPS holders is not only the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do if we want to promote continued economic growth and vitality around the country.
As immigration policy is increasingly used as a political tool to divide and silence workers, America’s unions are committed to working with Congress to pursue common-sense pro-worker policies that help lift standards in our workplaces and ensure equal and enforceable rights for all. The SECURE Act will do just that by offering working families the more secure future they need and deserve, and removing the fear and uncertainty that scares workers into silence.
1 Zipperer, Ben. “Trump’s Deportation Agenda Will Destroy Millions of Jobs: Both Immigrants and U.S.-Born Workers Would Suffer Job Losses, Particularly in Construction and Child Care.” Economic Policy Institute, July 10, 2025. https://www.epi.org/publication/trumps-deportation-agenda-will-destroy-millions-of-jobs-both-immigrants-and-u-s-born-workers-would-suffer-job-losses-particularly-in-construction-and-child-care/.
Enabling millions of people to live and work without fear in our country will help keep working families together and preserve stability and predictability in our workforce and economy. We urge you to stand with working families and co-sponsor the SECURE Act today.
Sincerely,
Jody Calemine
Director, Government Affairs