(Washington, DC, April 21, 2014) - Since April 17, 2013, the AFL-CIO has joined its vigorous support for a comprehensive immigration reform bill with a call on the administration to cease needless deportations. Today, the AFL-CIO issues a detailed policy statement that fleshes out the pro-worker case for the Department of Homeland Security to stop the deportation crisis.
The highlights of the AFL-CIO’s three policy recommendations are as follows:
- DHS should grant affirmative relief with work authorization to individuals who are low priorities for removal or eligible for prosecutorial discretion under existing DHS policies. This would stop employers from “playing the deportation card” that pits workers against each other.
- DHS should reassert the primary role of the federal government in determining and implementing enforcement priorities by ending programs that effectively delegate those responsibilities to state and local law enforcement.
- DHS should reform the enforcement and removal system to stop criminalizing immigrant communities and ensure that individuals who are low priorities for removal or eligible for prosecutorial discretion are not removed.
The policy statement, which can be found at http://www.aflcio.org/Issues/Immigration/AFL-CIO-Recommendations-on-Administrative-Action-on-Immigration not only offers recommendations but provides the legal foundation for our continuing call to push the Administration to take broad executive action to relieve the ongoing deportation crisis for millions of workers.
Contact: Jeff Hauser or Gonzalo Salvador (202) 637-5018