Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights
July 19,2021
RESOLUTION CALLING ON THE U.S. CONGRESS TO ENACT A BROAD PATH TO CITIZENSHIP FOR UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS THROUGH BUDGET RECONCILIATION
WHEREAS, The City of Chicago and the United States were founded by immigrants, who have traveled from around the world seeking a better life; and
WHEREAS, Our nation's immigration system should uphold our basic values of family, economic opportunity, and fairness; and
WHEREAS, The US is currently home to eleven million undocumented immigrants, including half a million who reside in Illinois, of which approximately 300,000 live in the City; and
WHEREAS, The current coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the importance of immigrants, including the undocumented, as "essential workers" who have sustained our City's and nation's health care system, food chain, and other vital services, often as great risk to their own - and their families' - health and well-being; and
WHEREAS, This Council has historically supported our City's immigrants and has previously called for the legalization of undocumented immigrants and other policies that welcome immigrants to this country and to our City; and
WHEREAS, Congress has an opportunity to pass, through the budget reconciliation process, a broad, inclusive pathway to citizenship for millions of essential workers and other immigrants who currently have short-term protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS); and
WHEREAS, Members of Illinois' Congressional delegation will play key roles in moving budget reconciliations forward and have a chance to prioritize a pathway to citizenship during budget legislation negotiations; and
WHEREAS, Even if Congress passes a legalization program through the budget reconciliation process, millions of undocumented immigrants throughout the country, and thousands in Chicago, will likely not qualify and will therefore remain vulnerable to enforcement and detention by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); and
WHEREAS, Congress determines the amount of funding that ICE and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) receive each year - amounts that have grown considerably over the past 20 years and that can instead go toward processing citizenship and DACA applications and other programming that benefits immigrant families and communities; and
WHEREAS, Congress can also call upon the Biden administration to take further action to protect immigrants by revising its immigration enforcement priorities to cover a narrower range of individuals and to ensure consideration ofthe entirety of each individual's life, rather than only looking at such individual's past criminal or immigration violations; now, therefore
BE IT RESOLVED, That we, the Mayor and members of the City Council of the City of Chicago, gathered here this twenty-first day of July, 2021, do hereby call upon the U.S. Congress to use the federal budget reconciliation process to create a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants, to reallocate funding from ICE and CBP for immigration
enforcement to programming that supports immigrant communities including pathways to citizenship, and to urge the White House and the Department of Homeland Security to take further executive actions including narrowing and revising their immigration enforcement priorities to further shield immigrants from deportation; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the members ofthe Illinois Congressional delegation.
Alderperson Rossana Rodriguez - Sanchez Alderperson Carlos Ramirez - Rosa
33rd Ward 35th Ward
Alderperson Daniel LaSpata 1st Ward
Alderperson Byron Sigcho - Lopez 25th Ward
Alderperson Andre Vazquez 40th Ward
Alderperson Jeannette Taylor 20th Ward
Alderperson Mike Rodriguez 22nd Ward
Alderperson Gilbert Villegas 36th Ward
Alderperson George Cardenas 12th Ward
Alderperson Maria Hadden 49th Ward
Alderperson Matt Martin 47th Ward
Alderperson Roderick Sawyer 6th Ward
Alderperson Sophia King 4th Ward
Alderperson Roberto Maldonado 26th Ward
Alderperson James Cappleman 46th Ward
Alderperson Felix Cardona 31st Ward
Alderperson Scott Waguespack 32nd Ward
Alderperson Sue Garza 10th Ward
Alderperson Debra Silverstein 50th Ward