Washington, DC – On April 27th, Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Co-Chairs Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN), along with Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), Chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), introduced a congressional resolution, signed by 32 House members, calling for the repeal of  several provisions of the Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRAIRA) and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty (AEDP) Act.

Approaching its 20th anniversary, IIRAIRA and AEDP paved the way for broadening the criteria for those eligible for deportation, creating easier processes for deportation, and severely restricting pathways toward citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

The law was signed by then President Bill Clinton and supported by Democratic lawmakers and laid the groundwork for an expansion of criminalization tactics used upon immigrant communities.  The Obama administration built upon this deportation machine with federal programs such as 287(g), which allows for intertwining of local police and federal immigration agents, and Secure Communities, later renamed as the Priority Enforcement Program.

Across the nation, United We Dream Action, and its sister organization United We Dream, are fighting back with campaigns to stop individual deportations  and community education by leaders implementing the Deportation Defense program, running a nationwide Watch ICE telephone hotline and fighting to end LGBTQ immigrant detention with our Break the Cage campaign.

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