wfn.org | Reform U.S. immigration system to protect families

["Lesley Crosson" <lcrosson@churchworldservice.org>]

>Church World Service
>475 Riverside Drive
>New York, New York 10115

For Immediate Release						

Reform U.S. immigration system to protect families and workers, Church
World Service urges as White House meeting approaches

August 20, 2009, Washington, D.C.-- Enforcement-only strategies will not fix America’s broken  immigration
system, Church World Service emphasized as it prepared to participate in
a meeting today with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and
other White House officials on the need for immigration reform.

Church World Service is among the more than 100 immigrants’  rights,
labor, business, and fellow faith organizations invited to the meeting.

The global humanitarian agency expressed its disappointment in the
Administration’s continued reliance on such flawed enforcement
strategies as home invasion raids, unnecessary detention, and the 287(g)
program, which empowers local and state law enforcement officers to also
arrest immigrants for documentation violations, making immigrants
fearful of reporting crime.

Such enforcement strategies are neither effective nor humane, and need
to be overhauled, Church World Service asserts.  And for enforcement to
be meaningful, it must be coupled with fair visa policies, especially
for families and workers.

Church World Service will continue to press the Administration and
Congress to enact immigration reforms that reunite separated families,
ensure due process, protect workers from exploitation, end unnecessary
detention, and provide a path to earned legal status for undocumented
immigrants.  Such reforms are needed urgently, CWS emphasized.

CWS’s 35 member denominations and their local congregations, along
with CWS-affiliated refugee and immigrant services offices across the
country, come face-to-face every day with the brokenness of U.S.
immigration policies and practices.  Their immigrant congregants and
clients and U.S.-citizen spouses and children have suffered family
separation, immigration home invasions and workplace raids, and
anti-immigrant rhetoric in the media and in their communities.

Its first-hand experience working with immigrants and refugees
motivates Church World Service to advocate for immigration reform that
prioritizes family unity, ensures access to the application process for
family and worker visas, provides alternatives to detention for asylum
seekers and other immigrants who are of no danger to the United States,
and allows undocumented immigrants to pursue a pathway to earned legal
status and eventual citizenship. CWS and its constituents are committed
to working with the Administration and Congress to enact these needed
reforms.

Media Contacts

Lesley Crosson, media@churchworldservice.org, (212) 870-2676
Carol Fouke, cfouke@churchworldservice.org, (212) 870-2673