votevoice.org

Encouraging civic involvement

Immigration

We believe: Legal immigration is a vital and valuable asset for the USA.

We support:

Modernize Legal Immigration

🎯 Objective:

Create a legal immigration system that reflects the needs of the 21st-century economy and respects family unity.

✅ Key Actions:

  • Update Visa Caps: Adjust annual employment and family-based visa quotas to reflect current labor market demands.

  • Streamline Green Card Backlogs: Recapture unused visas from previous years and expedite processing for long-waiting applicants.

  • Create a Points-Based Visa Track: Establish a merit-based visa option that considers education, skills, U.S. ties, and language proficiency.

  • Support STEM and High-Demand Occupations: Increase H-1B and EB visa availability for sectors like health care, AI, and green energy.

  • Ensure Family Reunification: Prioritize visas for immediate family members and remove country-specific per-country limits.


📘 Provide a Pathway to Citizenship

🎯 Objective:

Integrate undocumented immigrants who contribute to the economy and society, especially Dreamers and long-term residents.

✅ Key Actions:

  • Pass the DREAM Act: Provide permanent legal status and a path to citizenship for DACA recipients and other Dreamers.

  • Earned Legalization Program: Offer undocumented immigrants a multi-step process to gain legal status through background checks, taxes, and community ties.

  • Agricultural and Essential Workers Act: Legalize status for long-term essential workers in farming, caregiving, and frontline jobs.

  • Remove Barriers to Naturalization: Reduce costs and paperwork, and increase outreach to encourage eligible immigrants to become citizens.

  • Eliminate Arbitrary Bans: Repeal 3- and 10-year reentry bans that punish family-based immigrants who try to regularize their status.


📘 Restore Order and Fairness to the Asylum System

🎯 Objective:

Rebuild an efficient, lawful asylum process that reflects U.S. humanitarian commitments.

✅ Key Actions:

  • Hire More Immigration Judges: Clear the 2+ million case backlog with increased staffing, training, and resources.

  • Create Regional Processing Centers: Establish safe, orderly screening facilities in Latin America to reduce irregular border crossings.

  • End For-Profit Immigration Detention: Use community-based alternatives to detention for low-risk asylum seekers and families.

  • Protect Vulnerable Populations: Guarantee expedited protections for asylum seekers, victims of domestic violence, and unaccompanied minors.

  • Implement Fair, Timely Hearings: Use smart scheduling and tech-based case management to ensure due process for asylum claims.


📘  Secure the Border with Smart, Humane Policies

🎯 Objective:

Ensure a secure, functional border that upholds U.S. laws and values.

✅ Key Actions:

  • Use 21st-Century Technology: Expand drones, sensors, and biometric systems at legal ports of entry, rather than building ineffective walls.

  • Modernize Ports of Entry: Increase staffing and infrastructure to detect smuggling and facilitate legitimate crossings.

  • Target Cartels and Trafficking Networks: Enhance cross-border law enforcement partnerships to disrupt transnational crime.

  • Protect Migrants from Abuse: Ban child separation, uphold anti-trafficking protocols, and ensure humane treatment at border facilities.

  • Coordinate with Neighbors: Work with Mexico and Central American governments on joint border management and development projects.


📘 Align Immigration with Economic and Humanitarian Goals

🎯 Objective:

Make immigration policy work for national prosperity and global leadership.

✅ Key Actions:

  • Create a Standing Immigration Policy Commission: An independent body to recommend annual visa numbers based on real-time labor data.

  • Invest in Integration Programs: Expand English classes, job training, and civic education for newcomers to fully participate in U.S. society.

  • Fund Local Governments and NGOs: Provide resources to cities and nonprofits that support resettlement, housing, and legal aid.

  • Protect Climate and Conflict Refugees: Prepare new humanitarian categories for those displaced by war or environmental crisis.

  • Promote Legal Pathways Abroad: Increase consular capacity to process work and family visas faster in high-demand regions.


TAKE ACTION – Contact Congress

(How to contact Congress) click here

Congressional Committees That Oversee Immigration

U.S. Senate

🔹 Senate Committee on the Judiciary

The main Senate committee for immigration law and policy.

  • Jurisdiction includes:

    • Immigration reform legislation

    • Visa programs (family, employment, student, humanitarian)

    • Citizenship and asylum laws

    • Oversight of immigration courts and federal immigration agencies

Relevant Subcommittee:


🔹 Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

  • Focuses on border security, visa policy implementation, and federal agency coordination.


🔹 Senate Committee on Appropriations

  • Subcommittee on Homeland Security

    • Controls federal spending for DHS immigration-related functions (e.g., ICE, CBP, USCIS).

U.S. House of Representatives

🔹 House Committee on the Judiciary

The primary committee responsible for immigration policy.

  • Jurisdiction includes:

    • Immigration and nationality laws

    • Border security legal frameworks

    • Refugee and asylum policy

    • Citizenship and naturalization

    • Oversight of immigration enforcement agencies (USCIS, ICE, CBP)

Relevant Subcommittee:


🔹 House Committee on Homeland Security

  • Focuses on operational aspects of immigration enforcement.

  • Jurisdiction includes:

    • Border security

    • U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)

    • U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

    • Visa security and entry-exit tracking


🔹 House Committee on Appropriations

  • Subcommittee on Homeland Security

    • Controls funding for immigration agencies like ICE, CBP, and USCIS.



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Women’s Health

Social Security and Medicare

Foreign Policy and Free Trade

Climate Change

Federal Debt

Presidential Integrity & Accountability

Government Efficiency