Washington, D.C. — Ahead of today’s mark-up of four anti-immigrant bills, including ones that would super-charge immigration enforcement and try once again to repeal executive action, the Center for American Progress has released analysis that explains how detrimental bad enforcement is for children and their families, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, directives on immigration announced by President Barack Obama last Novemeber, although they cannot completely undo the damage done to immigrant families, are a start: The directives will give close to 5 million people the ability to get temporary legal status and to work legally, which will keep families together, improve families’ economic situation, and alleviate the stresses and anxieties of family separation.
Author Joanna Dreby bases her recently published study, Everyday Illegal, on interviews with 81 families, including 110 young children and 91 parents, to document the concrete and multiple costs to American families as a result of the broken U.S. immigration system. These policies affect not only undocumented immigrants, but also native-born citizens and legal migrants. While there are approximately 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, there are an estimated 16.6 million people living in mixed-status families, generally with undocumented parents and citizen children. These families and their individual members pay a steep price from immigration enforcement, as do all Americans.
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RELATED RESOURCES
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How DACA Has Improved the Lives of Undocumented Young People by Zenen Jaimes Perez
The Problem With Congress’ Plan To Fund Homeland Security For Just 3 More Weeks by Esther Y Lee (ThinkProgress)
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