Our Principles

We are a united voice for just and humane immigration reform. Our campaign supports the following principles:

• Immigration reform must promote economic opportunity. We renew our commitment to helping all low-income Americans improve their job prospects and move up the economic ladder towards the American Dream.
• Immigration reform must be comprehensive. Unless we tackle the broken immigration system as a whole, we fail to solve the problem at hand.
• Long-term reform requires long term solutions. The factors shaping immigration are not just domestic; the issue transcends our borders. As such, our relationships with other countries matter. We must deal with the domestic aspect of this issue and work in partnership with other countries over time to develop long-term strategies.

Our Goals

A reform package that works for all communities and families in America should do the following:

• A rational and humane approach to the undocumented population. We must address the more than twelve million undocumented immigrants living in this country by creating a registration process that leads to lawful permanent resident status and eventual citizenship.
• Protect U.S. and immigrant workers. We must protect all workers’ rights, regardless of whether they were born in the United States or abroad, and any employment verification system should determine employment authorization accurately and efficiently while protecting workers and good-faith employers.
• Allocate sufficient visas to close unlawful migration channels. The level of legal immigration is set arbitrarily by Congress as a product of political compromise. Employment visas to workers should be depoliticized and placed in the hands of an independent commission that assesses labor shortages and determines the number and characteristics of foreign workers to be admitted, with Congress’s approval.
• Enhance our nation’s security and safety. A sensible enforcement strategy will keep America safe, protect due process and human rights, effectively use tools and policies already in place, and be fiscally responsible. Then, enforcement can target genuine threats—violent individuals, unscrupulous employers, traffickers and drug smugglers, and those that might exploit the immigration system to do the country harm.
• Establish a strategic border enforcement policy that reflects American values. Border strategies must be made in conjunction with border communities. This is the best way to ensure that our policies protect our national security, while balancing enforcement with economic development and human and civil rights.
• Keep American families together. Outdated family immigration channels keep close family members separated for decades. We must restore our commitment to promoting family unity.