Tell Congress: Support immigrants’ rights. Cancel asylum bans now.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced new border enforcement measures that are two-fold: they include a new pathway for Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans to enter the United States if they have U.S.-based sponsors and have the resources to fly to the U.S. This new program of temporary admission, called “parole,” will offer some people the opportunity to enter the U.S. legally.
But, at the same time, the administration also announced an expansion of Title 42, a policy that allows for the rapid expulsion of individuals back to those same countries without the opportunity to apply for asylum. This means that Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans attempting to seek asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border will now be turned away if they did not go through the parole program first.
While we applaud the Biden administration’s decision to offer new ways for people to come lawfully to the United States, we are concerned about it being paired with enforcement measures that cut off asylum access at the border for thousands of migrants fleeing violence and disaster who do not have the economic means to qualify for the new parole program.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senator Bob Menendez (D-NY) are being joined by their colleagues in both the House and Senate in issuing a letter urging the Biden administration to stand by their commitment to restore and protect the rights of asylum seekers and refugees.
This Trump-era ban on asylum for people who travel through another country on their way to the U.S. goes directly against our values. Many critics are concerned that the expansion of Title 42 and the new transit ban will further erode the legal right to seek asylum and put many more people in danger, particularly Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ people.
We are proud to join 291 civil, human rights, and immigrant rights groups along with Representatives Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Grijalva (D-AZ), and Casar (D-TX) and Senators Menendez (D-NJ), Booker (D-NJ), Padilla (D-CA), and Luján (D-NM) in urging the Biden administration against expanding Title 42 and resurrecting the Trump-era asylum ban. Send a direct message to your members of Congress, urging them to sign on today!
As a nation of immigrants, we must expand safe, legal pathways to the U.S. while maintaining order at our Southern border. Expanding the use of Title 42 is inhumane and is a Trump-era policy that disproportionately harms Black and brown migrants. The right to seek asylum is a fundamental human right and we have a moral obligation to establish a system that treats all migrants in a safe and humane way.
The K-shaped recovery edition. COVID-19 daily infections are down over the past two weeks. Hospitalizations are down. Deaths are down, slightly. Vaccinations are on the rise – more than 22 million Americans have received their first shot, and the rolling average of shots per day has climbed to over one million. All of which is encouraging news.
But the economic news is not so encouraging. New information out this week confirms what many have feared: we are experiencing a K-shaped recovery. The top end of the economy continues to improve while lower earners fall farther and farther behind. The businesses hit hardest in 2020 – and those that continue to struggle today, if they even still exist – disproportionately employ women, people of color, and workers without college educations.
Vaccines alone won’t pull us out of this economic morass. Only swift, bold, and long-lasting action by Congress will do that, and that means passage of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan. But vaccines are key, as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell noted this week, when he saidthere is “nothing more important to the economy right now than getting people vaccinated.”
That said, vaccines by themselves won’t put food on the table, open child care centers, or bring back the ten million jobs that have evaporated since the pandemic began. Along with the vaccines, we need to pass the plan now. You can tell your members of Congress to pass the plan here.
-34%/-2%
As of Thursday, January 28, new COVID-19 infections in the U.S. numbered165,073, a 34 percent decrease from two weeks earlier. 3,862 deaths were reported, down 2 percent. Tweet this.
3.5%
The U.S. economy shrunkby 3.5 percent in 2020, its worst performance since 1946. Tweet this.
45 weeks
Last week marked the 45th consecutive week that new unemployment insurance claims were higher than the worst week of the Great Recession. 1.27 million new claims were reported– that includes regular UI claims plus Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims (gig/self-employed workers). Tweet this.
10%
The nation’s real unemployment rate, if we adjust the official rate with the decline in workforce participation along with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ estimate of misclassification. Tweet this.
More than 20%
The Federal Reserve estimatesthat the unemployment rate for workers in the bottom wage quartile is more than 20 percent. Tweet this.
More than 1 million
In three of the biggest employment sectors for low-education (high school diploma or less) workers – construction, bars and restaurants, and hotels and motels – more than a million jobs were lost between December 2019 and December 2020.
3.9%/8.5%
The unemployment rate is 3.9 percent for those Americans able to work from home; among those who have to report to a job site, it is 8.5 percent.
Nearly 24 million
The numberof adults who reported their households did not have enough to eat during the previous seven days, according to Census data gathered January 6-18. That’s 11 percent of all adults in the U.S.
15.1 million
The numberof adult renters who weren’t caught up in rent. That’s one in five adult renters.
More than 80 million
The numberof adults who reported that it was somewhat or very difficult to cover usual expenses during the past seven days. That’s 35 percent of all adults.
January 29, 2021 