WASHINGTON D.C., United States, Tuesday January 7, 2014, CMC – The Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives, John A. Boehner, has signalled his intention to embrace a series of limited changes to the US immigration laws.
Aides to Boehner say he is committed to “step by step” moves to revise the immigration laws.
In giving immigration advocates new hope for 2014, the House Speaker has hired Rebecca Tallent, a longtime immigration adviser to Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has long backed broad immigration changes, according to the New York Times.
“The only way to make sure immigration reform works this time is to address these complicated issues one step at a time,” Boehner said. “I think doing so will give the American people confidence that we’re dealing with these issues in a thoughtful way and a deliberative way.”
In the interim, immigration change advocates continue to demand an end to deportations.
“I have asked President Obama to suspend deportations of non-violent persons until we enact comprehensive immigration reform that permits these families to resolve their legal status in the United States,” Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York, told the Caribbean Media Corporation.
“In each instance of deportation, families are forcibly separated, leaving behind a husband or wife without a spouse or children without a parent,” added Clarke, who is the Ranking Member of the US House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies.
“These forced separations of families are excessive and has created a crisis that has resulted in more harm than good,” she continued. “The exercise of excessive deportation is inhumane and flies in the face of the values and morals of a nation established by immigrants for immigrants. We cannot allow this exercise to continue.”
In announcing the year-end removal numbers, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency said Jamaicans were among the top 10 nationals deported in 2013.
Clarke said “many of these men and women have lived in the United States for practically their entire lives.
“Many arrived here in their youth as children and, in many cases, entered the United States lawfully and were granted resident status,” she said..