President Obama has blamed Congress for its inaction with immigration reform and he has committed to using his executive power to help undocumented immigrants. As time ticks away, we are still waiting to see his actions and we know that he has the power to act now.

11 million undocumented immigrants are still living with the fear of deportation and the threat of being separated from their families. Many are carwash workers who contribute to society but continue to be the target to wage theft and abusive working practices. While a clear path to citizenship is the only way to grant permanent solutions to carwash workers and others, administrative relief can happen immediately to help millions of undocumented immigrants and their families.

Carwash workers would greatly benefit from different areas of administrative relief such as the expansion of the U-visa program to include labor violations as qualifying criteria, were victims of these crimes would have a temporary legal status to work and live in this country.

The CLEAN Carwash Campaign calls on President Obama to expand administrative relief for undocumented immigrants, including protection from deportation and work authorization. For many immigrants, temporary relief is the only opportunity they have to keep their families together.

Visit AFL-CIO and tell President Obama to act on immigration and include protections for all workers, including carwash workers in LA. The administration should prioritize a commonsense administrative relief policy that considers all working undocumented immigrants and not just parents of citizens, or parents of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients.

Administrative relief is a significant but minimal step on the path to comprehensive immigration reform, which is still the vision we want to see fulfilled.

Posted by Carwash Camp on Tuesday, August 19th, 2014 @ 3:55PM
Categories: Blogs, Immigration Reform