EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – Congresswoman Veronica Escobar held a press conference Tuesday morning along with community leaders, urging President Joe Biden to extend work permits to migrants.
This will be presented to the President as a letter urging him to consider granting parole on a case-by-case basis to the thousands of migrants who are part of mixed-status families, many of which are currently residing in the country, and others who are separated from their families living outside of the country.
“We have thousands of passengers and millions of Americans whose families cannot live together, cannot grow together, and cannot see their kids, or Americans who have to relocate to a different country to keep their families together,” Escobar said.
According to the American Business Coalition, there are 9,000 spouses married to U.S. citizens who lack immigration status and 1,900 dreamers who are unable to apply for DACA since it was recently declared illegal by a federal judge in September.
Community leaders also discussed the potential economic benefits of incorporating migrants into the workforce.
“This is advantageous to us as a country. This would not just help fill those key jobs as laid out by our chamber leaders, but it would help grow our GDP. It would help us combat inflation. So the benefits would be long lasting, not just for these standards, but for our community and for our country,” Escobar said.
This all comes a few days removed from the Texas House, passing three immigration bills that generated a lot of controversy, one of them being Texas House Bill 4. This bill would allow law enforcement to arrest migrants, return them to a port of entry, and order them to return to Mexico.
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