AFT Leaders Applaud Biden Administration for Keeping Families Together

WASHINGTON—AFT President Randi Weingarten, Secretary-Treasurer Fedrick Ingram and Executive Vice President Evelyn DeJesus issued the following statement in response to President Joe Biden’s new policy ensuring protections for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens:

“To millions right now in America, the fear of deportation and family separation represents an overwhelming and unjust anxiety. This includes many immigrants who were protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and have lived in the United States for decades, building families, friends and communities. For all intents and purposes, the United States is their home, and they are as American as anyone else. Yet, burdened by a dysfunctional, rigidly bureaucratic and impersonal immigration system, undocumented spouses and mixed-status families remain in constant fear that the lives they have built could be lost in the blink of an eye. Republican lawmakers and politicians have done nothing to assuage these fears, continuing to demonize immigrants for cheap culture war points.

“Biden’s new policy rekindles our Dreamers’ dreams. It tells the around 500,000 mixed-status families that we are protecting children from fearing the deportation of their parents and that we are offering spouses a pathway to citizenship and the right to work in the United States. Immigrants are the backbone of our nation, families belong together, and we’re at our best when we are a country of refuge, not rejection. This is a step in the right direction toward reforming our broken immigration system, and it reminds us that there is still so much work to do in affirming, appreciating and assuring a path to citizenship for mixed-status families. Thank you, President Biden, for keeping dreams alive.”