Letter Urging Senate to Pass Children Immigration Reform S. 744

This letter urges the senate to:
-Protect S.744’s pathway to citizenship for the 11 million, including the DREAM Act, and ensure that the youngest DREAMers have access to the same 5-year pathway to citizenship as older DREAMers
-Support efforts to provide equal access to health services and programs that are critical to children’s health and well-being, and defend against efforts to further limit children’s access to these programs
-Defend access to critical income supports for children and families, such as the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and defend against efforts to prevent low-income immigrant families from accessing the path to citizenship and income supports
-Support proposals that would promote family unity and protect the provisions in S.744 that keep families together, including improvements to the family-based immigration system; the ability of immigration judges to consider hardship to children in removal and inadmissibility decisions; and the provision that would provide a means for certain removed immigrants, such as parents of U.S. citizen children and DREAM-eligible youth, to return to the U.S. and apply for citizenship
-Protect the provisions in S.744 that would ensure that immigration enforcement measures no longer needlessly separate families or cause harm to children
-Defend the provisions in S.744 that would improve protections for unaccompanied immigrant children, including access to legal representation and improved screening and training mechanisms for immigration enforcement personnel, and support efforts to further ensure that immigration enforcement actions duly consider the best interest of the child