Faith, Labor, & Advocacy Immigration Groups to Speaker Boehner & House GOP: Drop Your ‘Extraordinarily Reckless’ Amendments Now

While Speaker Boehner and House Republicans consider their dangerous amendments that threaten our national security and call for mass deportations, see what prominent faith, labor, and advocacy immigration groups have to say to them:

From the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:

• …I write to ask that you oppose immigration-related amendments to H.R. 240… which attempt to defund and block implementation of the Administration's executive actions on immigration… Representative Aderholt's amendment would place millions of hard-working immigrant families in peril and perpetuate situations of family separation… Representative Blackburn's…amendment… would therefore affect hundreds of thousands of hard-working ambitious immigrant children…In our churches and in our parishes, we see firsthand the devastation of family separation and the family breakdown that results from such separation. For this reason, we strongly oppose these amendments and ask that you vote against them.

From Interfaith Immigration Coalition:

• …we strongly urge you to oppose H.R. 240 and its accompanying amendments. We ask you to specifically oppose any amendments that would repeal important programs…At the center of all of our varied faith traditions lies the belief in the sanctity of family. It is the core of our society and must be nourished and protected…We hope you will oppose H.R. 240, its amendments, and any legislation that would tear families apart. Our most marginalized brothers and sisters deserve your protection.

From Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service:

• …(LIRS) opposes proposed amendments to H.R. 240…If passed, proposed amendments would have devastating effects on members of our families, communities and congregations, including young people who arrived in the United States as children.

From National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women:

• …we write in opposition to the Aderholt and DeSantis amendments to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill. These amendments are overly broad, sweep large numbers of victims into their scope and ignore the best interests of victims and their children… The proposed amendments serve to undermine protections from removal for victims of domestic and sexual violence and undercut the spirit of VAWA. We strongly urge you to vote NO on the following amendments…

From Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights:

• …We write to express our strong opposition to the amendments that will be offered to H.R. 240…it is shameful that the House is opening the 114^th Congress with a rhetorical assault on immigrants and on a number of common-sense policies adopted by President Obama over the past several years. We strongly urge you to vote against the amendments, pass a clean DHS appropriations bill…

From Coalition on Human Needs (CHN):

• …(CHN) strongly opposes the harsh and sweeping anti-immigrant amendments…Made up of more than 100 national organizations including faith-based groups, service providers, civil rights, labor, and policy experts, with many thousands in our networks nationwide, CHN strongly supports policies to prevent the break-up of immigrant families, to protect workers and their families from unfair treatment, and to provide opportunities for immigrants to be truly integrated into our communities and economic life… These provisions hurt immigrants, and we oppose them on that basis, but they also hurt all American workers. Millions of workers left in fear and subject to unfair labor practices depress wages throughout the workforce.

From American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO):

• On behalf of the AFL-CIO, I urge you to oppose the amendments…Now is not the time to play politics with funding for the DHS or compromise our national security…the amendments set the 114^th Congress on a callous anti-immigrant path. Rather than rollback important steps towards rational and humane enforcement of our nation's immigration laws, Congress should build off these executive actions and advance common-sense immigration legislation that offers a permanent path to citizenship.

From SEIU:

• On behalf of SEIU's two million members, I urge you to vote against the Aderholt, Blackburn, DeSantis, Schock and Salmon amendments to H.R. 240…Congress's failure to enact common-sense immigration reform has left our immigration system in a shambles. It makes no sense to divert homeland security measures to hunt down and deport such individuals…who pose no threat…Instead of attempting to frustrate the Administration's efforts to improve our broken immigration system, Congress should fulfill its own obligations and enact common-sense reform that adjusts the status of currently undocumented immigration, protects workers, comports with America's values, and addresses the challenges and promises of today's economy.

From American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME):

• I urge your to oppose each of the five amendments…these policy riders would reverse and otherwise undermine President Obama's immigration executive actions. In a time of heightened terrorist threats as evidenced by the mass murders in Paris, it is extraordinarily reckless for the House GOP leadership to play politics with DHS funding in order to appease the far right of its caucus.

From National Hispanic Leadership Agenda:

• We write on behalf of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA), a coalition of 39 leading national Latino nonpartisan civil rights and advocacy organizations, to urge you to vote against any amendments to H.R. 240…The impact of these amendments would cause disproportionate harm to Latino families, who are the primary recipients of current and future grants of deferred action. These amendments would also harm the economy…Congress must work with the Administration to enact bipartisan, comprehensive, and long-lasting immigration reforms.

From National Council of La Raza:

• Amendments like these are mean-spirited. Rather than blocking or defunding Administrative Relief, House Republicans should move forward with a legislative solution to fix our broken immigration system and refrain from jeopardizing a vital appropriations bill…

From American Immigration Lawyers Association:

• As the national bar association of more than 13,000 immigration lawyers and law professors, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) writes to express our opposition to four amendments to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Appropriations Act 2015…AILA also opposes these amendments as improper attempts to legislate policy on an extremely complex and controversial issue in the limited context of an appropriations bill.

From Fair Immigration Reform Movement:

• …Republicans promised an end to partisan gridlock, yet in their first week of the 114th Congress they have threatened to defund the Department of Homeland Security in order to block relief for millions of immigrant families and workers…The five amendments up for consideration are a collection of the harshest anti-immigrant provisions we have seen in years and are completely out of line with where Americans stand on immigration…Republicans keep saying they want comprehensive immigration reform, yet every time the topic is up for debate and Congress considers immigration-related legislation, they only succeed at introducing and rallying behind radical anti-immigrant measures.

From National Immigrant Justice Center:

• Heartland Alliance's National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) is appalled by mean-spirited attempts by certain members of Congress to reverse President Obama's immigration executive action and roll back protections for children and families fleeing rampant violence in Central America…NIJC urges House members to refocus their efforts on comprehensive immigration reform legislation that will keep families together and ensure due process for those who seek safety in our country.

From Asian Americans Advancing Justice:

• …(AAJC) urges House leadership to discontinue all efforts underway to defund or weaken President Obama's execution actions on immigration…By deciding to attach these poison-pill amendments to the Homeland Security Appropriations bill, the bill's sponsors and supporters show once more—just one week into the 114^th Congress—that they are not serious about legislating. Real lives are at stake here.

From Farmworker Justice:

• Farmworker Justice writes to urge you to oppose anti-immigrant amendments to H.R. 240…Efforts in Congress to prevent the Administration from taking these modest steps should be rejected not only because the President possesses the authority for these sensible steps, but because the Administration's efforts are humanitarian in nature and are sensible steps to address our broken immigration system.

From Law Enforcement Officers:

• …the proposals under consideration by the House of Representatives…represent a step backward, lead to uncertainty in our immigration enforcement system, and make it harder for state and local law enforcement to police our communities….we are concerned by reports of various proposals in the House that do not appear to have bipartisan support and could unnecessarily threaten a partial governmental shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As law enforcement officers, we regularly work with DHS and its component agencies and fear that an unfunded DHS will sow confusion and uncertainty.

From First Focus Campaign for Children:

• …I write to express our strong opposition to "The Department of Homeland Security Fiscal Year 2015 Appropriations Act"…We oppose the amendments attached to this bill…we believe these amendments to H.R. 240 are not only reckless and misguided, but they also undermine our American values and do nothing to fix our immigration system. A vote in favor H.R. 240 with these amendments will be scored for our Champion for Children scorecard as a vote against children.

From National Education Association:

• On behalf of the three million members of the National Education Association (NEA), and the students they serve, we are writing to you regarding…amendments [that] will have devastating impacts on our students, their families and communities. We urge you to VOTE NO…

From Association of Flight Attendants:

• We join the House Democratic Leadership in calling for a clean funding measure for critical DHS national security and safety programs through the end of the fiscal year. Flight Attendants usher members of our military to fight for our country's freedoms while Republicans are attacking military spouses at home through radical immigration policy riders. This is wrong and irresponsible.