NWLC Statement on President Biden’s Executive Action to Protect Undocumented Immigrants from Deportation
WASHINGTON – The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), which has fought for more than 50 years to advance the rights of women and girls in the areas of education, employment, family economic security, and health, released a statement applauding the Biden administration on announcing a new executive action to protect certain undocumented immigrants from deportation. Today’s announcement is on the heels of the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood arrivals (DACA) program, which has protected hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors from deportation.
See below for a statement from Fatima Goss Graves, President and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center.
“We are very excited about today’s executive action taken by President Biden, which will protect families from being torn apart, provide them with work authorization, and access to a pathway to citizenship. Undocumented immigrants are the backbone of this country’s infrastructure, including providing vital care for children, aging, and disabled people, yet many of them remain at risk of deportation.
“One million undocumented immigrants live in mixed-status families, which includes women and children. Today’s action will protect approximately half a million spouses of U.S. citizens, and 50,000 noncitizen children from deportation. Additionally, it will facilitate work visas for certain DACA recipients. Providing work authorization to these individuals will increase our tax revenue and provide them with greater flexibility in the labor force. This is an important step in fixing our broken immigration system.
“That said, we continue to be disappointed that the administration signed an executive order a few weeks ago that made harmful changes to the asylum process, and we urge the administration to reverse course on those changes without delay.”
