Miami and Florida public officials call on Biden to expand immigration protections
More than 30 public officials from South Florida and the state asked President Joe Biden in a letter on Tuesday to expand immigration protections for migrants in the U.S. who are without pathways to permanent immigration or whose protections from deportation are nonexistent or potentially at risk.
“We write from the state of Florida to urge you to take immediate action to improve our broken immigration system and provide protections for immigrant families who have long called America their home,” reads the letter sent Tuesday, spearheaded by the Florida Immigration Coalition and signed by Democrats and non-partisan office holders from across the state.
The correspondence asks Biden to address the immigration needs of “long-term populations living and working in America.” It focuses on undocumented adults who came to the country as children, citizens of several Latin American countries already designated for the Temporary Protected Status program, and people who could gain lawful status through family members.
The letter comes in the wake of a new state law that makes it harder for undocumented immigrants to live and work in Florida. The legislation compels hospitals who take Medicaid to ask and report patient immigration status, and orders private businesses with more than 25 workers to use the E-verify platform to check their employees’ eligibility to work in the U.S., among several other immigration-related restrictions and measures.
“The threats to immigrant families continue to grow as extremist politicians propose policies that could ultimately upend their lives and impact the stability of our local communities and economy,” the letter says.
State senators and representatives, city and county commissioners, school board members and county mayors and vice mayors were among those who signed the letter. They include Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, County Commissioner Marleine Bastien, Miami Commissioner Sabina Covo, and Miami-Dade School Board Members Lucia Baez-Geller and Luisa Santos.
The letter asks the White House to ensure that recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which allows undocumented people who came to the U.S. as children to stay in the country, stay shielded from deportation and keep their work authorizations regardless of the outcome of ongoing federal litigation. There were nearly 590,000 active DACA recipients in the United States as of last September, according to U.S. and Citizenship services. About 23,000 were Florida residents.
The elected officials also urged the Biden administration to redesignate Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras for Temporary Protected Status, a federal program that allows migrants from countries in turmoil to continue living and working in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of people from those countries were recipients of the program in 2021, according to federal government data. A redesignation would expand eligibility for the program to more people from these four countries and for a longer period of time.
The letter also asks the administration to cut down the backlogs of family-based visas that relatives can sponsor and petition for family members, such as certain kinds of green cards and family reunification programs for Cuba and Haiti, which can take years to process.
“We live, work, pray and play with those who have come to America to build a better life for their families,” the letter says. “We urge you to use your authority to make life better in our states by extending and expanding protections for our friends and neighbors.”
This story was originally published August 8, 2023 at 2:01 PM.