Current Mission:
Waiver Reform / Bars of Inadmissibility
For too long, too many U.S. citizens and their husbands, wives or children have faced family separation because immigration law denies judges the authority to review their cases. Lifetime sentences are applied without due process mechanisms that balance the facts of inadmissibility cases against the harm done to U.S. citizens.
Prior Missions:
CARES Act Exclusion (resolved)
Many US citizens who filed their taxes jointly with their non-citizen spouse receive no stimulus check under the CARES act. Exceptions included active duty military and spouses who have already received a social security number, a process that can take months if not years. Many of these citizens were working on the front lines in health care and other essential services, putting their lives at risk to protect Americans from COVID-19. This issue was resolved in the second round of economic impact payments.
Security Check Delays (resolved)
More than half a million cases were delayed in the early 2000s, and $20 million allocated to USCIS to resolve the issue in 2008 thanks in part to our advocacy efforts.
Our impact:
- $11.3 billion in direct relief during the COVID-19 pandemic for U.S. citizens who had been excluded because they were married to immigrants
- Relief for more than a quarter of a million families caught in multi-year security check delays from 2002 through 2008
- Supporting the American Families United Act in the 113th-118th congresses. This legislation would help nearly 2 million families of U.S. citizens that have been separated or face separation by spousal immigration denials or deportations
- Asking Congress in 2009 to stop deporting step-children of U.S. citizens simply for having birthdays, and proposing a solution to reunite these families
- Testifying before Congress on the Separation of Nuclear Families in U.S. Immigration Law in 2013
- Asking for the i601a provisional waiver in 2011, and supporting ensuing regulatory change in 2012 which has helped keep 146,547 families together between 2014 and 2018
- Holding annual national grassroots lobby days