One Year In: Some Progress but Not Enough

For Immediate Release: January 20, 2022

One Year In: Some Progress but Not Enough

Washington, D.C. – One year into the Biden-Harris Administration, the We Are Home campaign is releasing an assessment of the administration’s progress in delivering on its promises to immigrant communities. This assessment highlights the need for the administration to act with urgency to protect and support millions of immigrants. While there has been some progress—due in large part to the advocacy of hundreds of pro immigrant organizations—this Administration has yet to deliver on its most substantive commitments. They have even reversed course and broken key promises, with horrific impacts on vulnerable people, particularly Black migrants.

The Biden-Harris Administration must keep its promises and work with Congress to deliver a path to citizenship. It must also exercise its executive authority and:

Protect people from family and community separation, using existing executive authority to grant protection and work authorization, including through robust application of the Temporary Protected Status statute;
Reduce harm and address racial disparities through transformation of the enforcement system, including by reversing the expansion of the detention system, closing detention facilities, and releasing people from detention without over-reliance on punitive, surveillance-based “alternatives” to detention; and
End the abuse and deportation of vulnerable migrants and restore meaningful access to asylum at the southern border.

Bridgette Gomez, campaign director for We Are Home, said:

“While there has been some progress, the Biden-Harris Administration needs to do more to deliver on their boldest and most urgent promises. With one year into this Administration, immigrant communities can’t keep waiting with no pathway to citizenship, no end in sight of for-profit detention and, most shamefully, no restoration of access to asylum for those fleeing danger.

“Our country can’t build back better without immigrants, and we expect the Biden-Harris Administration to use every tool at their disposal to honor their commitments. We Are Home will push the administration to deliver on their promises to protect people from family and community separation, reduce harm in the enforcement apparatus, and to restore access to asylum at our country’s border.”

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We Are Home is a nationwide campaign to fight for immigrant communities on three fronts: prioritizing and demanding a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in America; a moratorium and overhaul of interior enforcement; and broad affirmative relief from deportation. We Are Home is co-chaired by Community Change/Community Change Action; National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA)/Care in Action; Service Employees International Union (SEIU); United Farm Workers/UFW Foundation; and United We Dream.