Mary-Charlotte Domandi:
And we’re talking today about a new bill that’s just been introduced called the U S Citizenship Act, which is an immigration reform bill.
Teresa Leger Fernandez:
What’s really exciting is for the first time in a long time you actually have a president who took the position that he wants to see comprehensive immigration reform that doesn’t say, we’re going to try to build a wall. This is about the people who are caring for our children, who are picking our food, who are starting amazing businesses and give so much to our economy. This is what this bill is about. And that’s why I like the fact that the way it’s called is the Citizenship Act, because that’s the idea is that the immigrants are giving so much to our community. And we’re saying it makes sense to provide them the path to citizenship. And that that’s the focus of the bill.
So we’re pretty excited about it getting introduced, about the support for it. I was in a committee meeting, so I couldn’t attend the press conference, but you had support from the speaker, you had support from so many people for this kind of approach. And that’s really exciting. How far we’ll get it we don’t know, but we’re going to, you know, the congressional Hispanic caucus met afterwards and you know, we’re going to push it as hard as we can to see if we can get it enacted. Because it’s far too long that it hasn’t happened. And it was wonderful, the speaker was at the press conference. The speaker was meeting with the congressional Hispanic caucus. I mean, this has the support of the democratic caucus in the house.
MCD:
One of the things that is included in here, and I think it’s really important, especially on this, to look back at a history that is a generation old, and that is the root causes of both migration and asylum and refugee seekers from Central America. This isn’t something that happened overnight. This has its roots during the Reagan administration.
TLF:
Exactly. It has its roots, if you look at the refugees that are fleeing, they are precisely fleeing from the countries—not just the Reagan administration, we can go further back—but they’re fleeing from the countries where the United States intervened, and intervened on behalf of authoritarian regimes, from Honduras to Guatemala. And so that’s what you’re seeing. And so this is a recognition that if we don’t address the root causes of asylum seekers, that we could continue to see those who are seeking asylum, which is an internationally recognized right, in which we have followed in the United States, that we will continue to see that. And then with regards to the root causes of immigration itself, part of the cause of immigration is climate crisis. And so everything is connected and what you’re seeing in this bill, and I think in all the work that we are doing right now as I’ve talked about, you’re seeing in this bill that we are recognizing the complexity of the problem, and that you have to not do a single, it’s not one band-aid that will work. You have to look at the complexities and address it, the same way in which the rescue plan looks at the complexities ranging from what’s happening at schools to what’s happening in the home with regards to, I think I spoke earlier about the fact that we are funding women’s shelters. So, you know, those are the kinds of things that we’re really working on. And then the last thing I need to go, but the last, because the reason I wasn’t able to be at the press conference was because I was at the house natural resources committee where I was elected to be chair of the subcommittee on indigenous peoples, which is really a marvelous thing.
So that was kind of exciting. But that was crazy. I’ll leave you with this. There was lengthy debate with one member and most of the Republicans, but one member appeared at the committee with, I don’t know how many automatic weapons and firearms as her backdrop. Indeed, one of the other Republicans, as he was speaking, pointed out, there was once a tiny space for she could fit one more handgun.
MCD:
She literally came in with actual live guns?
TLF:
No, we are doing everything remote. So that was her backdrop.
MCD:
Oh, okay.
TLF:
But we did pass that there was no need to have guns in committee rooms. And so that was, I think an important thing to say that we need guns in committee hearings is absolutely ridiculous. And so we passed—one of our rules of that committee is that guns are not allowed in the committee room.
MCD:
What about on backdrops?
TLF:
You could do whatever you want in your own home. Right. So I know. Okay. Talk to you later.
