Caribbean-American U.S. Rep. Yvette D. Clarke has called on President Barack Obama to stop the deportation of immigrants from the Caribbean and other countries, who lack legal status in the United States.
Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the largely Caribbean 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, said her appeal would help to “prevent the continued dislocation of families and children.”
“There are thousands and thousands of families in the community I represent who are threatened with deportation,” said Clarke, who is a ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies.
“These are real families – mothers and fathers, sons and daughters – who are living with the risk of separation, in some instances, permanent separation,” she said.
“Until we have comprehensive reform of a failed system of immigration, we cannot in good faith allow the often irrevocable harm of deportation to continue,” she continued. “With each day, we deport more than 1,000 people who could potentially become citizens.”
Clarke noted that in July, the Senate passed an immigration reform bill that would allow most of the victims of “our failed system of immigration to obtain status as legal permanent residents and, eventually, to become citizens.”
She said Republican leaders in the House have “refused, however, to allow a vote on the bill.
Source: Nycaribnews.com
