Democrats Call For Fast-Tracking Citizenship For Undocumented Essential Workers | HuffPost - 0 views
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shared by cvanderloo on 16 Jan 21
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Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) and Sen.-designate Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) are pushing for undocumented essential workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic to be fast-tracked for U.S. citizenship.
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Padilla’s own parents came to the U.S. from Mexico in the 1960s and worked in restaurants and house cleaning.
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“These are people who feed us, clean our homes and hospitals and offices… and they do all this while living in fear of deportation, exploitation and now of this pandemic,”
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many who work in meatpacking, farm work and other front-line industries don’t have the option to work from home, and their employers don’t provide them with paid sick leave.
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Biden and Harris’ platform includes a commitment to work with Congress to pass legislation to create a path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
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As the coronavirus surges, Latinx and Black people are around four times as likely to be hospitalized as white people, and nearly three times as likely to die,
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Last month, France fast-tracked citizenship processes for hundreds of immigrant front-line workers, including health care workers, garbage collectors, housekeepers and cashiers.
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Undocumented immigrants are among those hardest hit by the pandemic since they are disproportionately represented among workers deemed “essential” — from farmworkers to building cleaners — who are risking their lives while millions of Americans stay home.
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Patrice Lawrence, co-director of the immigrant group UndocuBlack Network, said legislation recognizing immigrants’ “humanity and our contributions to this country is long overdue” and that a bill protecting undocumented essential workers is “the bare minimum this country can do.”