WASHINGTON, CMC – Caribbean American Democratic Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke on Friday joined Texas Democratic Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia and Clarke’s fellow co-author Nydia M. Velázquez, a New York Democratic congresswoman in reintroducing the American Dream and Promise Act, which seeks to overhaul America’s immigration system.
Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that the legislation seeks to strengthen protections for recipients of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), such as Haitians, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), protecting recipients of TPS and DACA from deportation and “creating a more comprehensive pathway to citizenship.”
“It has been 11 years since we first gave temporary legal protection to people brought to this country as children,” said Clarke, representing the primarily Caribbean 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York. “And, on the anniversary of the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals program, we have 600,000 people waiting in limbo as a federal judge considers the future of this program. A program that helped many of them go to college and grad school to buy homes and start businesses.
“We’re talking about healthcare workers providing critical patient care, educators teaching our children, folks in the food supply chain, as food travels from farms to dinner tables,” she added. “We’re talking about people making major economic and fiscal contributions to our nation yearly. Their contributions as the economy recovers are real.”
But the congresswoman said a pathway to US citizenship would “boost these folks to new heights, especially as the United States tracks its course for economic recovery.
“To deliver for Dreamers is for America,” she said. “I am so proud to stand with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reintroduce the American Dream and Promise Act because the greatness of the American Dream is the belief that any single person can come to this land of opportunity that allows the possibility of upward mobility, freedom and equality for people of all races, classes, and religions who work hard and have the will to succeed.”
Clarke said, “It’s time for real solutions to invest in America’s immigration system and our nation’s growth and development and ensure it remains a bastion of opportunity for all of us. And I’m proud to stand by my colleagues’ sides, demanding that we do just that.”
She noted that her parents came to the United States in the 1950s as international students and that her Brooklyn district has many people from around the world.
“It’s an immigrant portal,” Clarke said. “I have many Dreamers living in my constituency at this very moment who are seeking the opportunity for a pathway to citizenship.
“We have worked hard and long on immigration in this Congress,” she added. “We have not met the goal yet. But we are not giving up. We are by no means going to relent.
“We will not stop until we reach that dream and that promise for everyone seeking this comprehensive immigration reform at the end of the day,” the congresswoman continued. “It’s my honor and privilege to be with you all today. Let’s keep the pressure on. Let’s go out and get this win.”
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