Washington, DC – Yesterday, presidential candidate and former Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Mayor of San Antonio, Texas, Julián Castro, unveiled his ‘People First’ Immigration policy. Secretary Castro is the first candidate of the major 2020 Democratic Primary contenders to release an immigration platform.
Cristina Jimenez, Executive Director of United We Dream Action, issued the following statement in response:
“Immigrant youth and our families at United We Dream Action are encouraged to see the moral clarity of Secretary Castro’s immigration platform.
We believe that after decades of Washington dysfunction on immigration, which has delivered no pathways to citizenship and only a larger and deadlier deportation force, that immigration reform proposals should help people without hurting people.
Castro’s newly published platform leads the Democratic primary debate in the right direction as he calls for a shift from mass deportation and criminalization to a framework that treats immigrants living in the United States as well as people living in Central America as the human beings that we are.
Castro’s call to end the for-profit detention industry and to separate the various functions of immigration enforcement agencies are the kind of creative solutions we need to see from candidates this election cycle.
Simply relying on old talking points for “comprehensive immigration reform” is not sufficient for a community under siege or for the American people who have wanted a pathway to citizenship for immigrants and have opposed mass deportation for decades.
We encourage all 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to talk to immigrant communities and offer immigration platforms which, like Secretary Castro, focus on the humanity of our community.”