Aerlande Wontamo, senior vice president of U.S. programs for World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, said, “We have long dreamed of a comprehensive immigration reform and are grateful for the good faith efforts by a Republican and a Democrat representative.”
Wontamo, an immigrant to the U.S. who grew up as an Ethiopian refugee in Kenya, said that she feels “discouraged” by Congress’ polarization and that a bipartisan plan was shot down so quickly.
Wontamo counted among the bill’s positive provisions its increased capacity for asylum adjudication, its offer of immediate work authorizations for those who have passed an initial asylum screening, its additional funding for refugee resettlement and 50,000 new annual family and employer-based immigrant visas.
But she was concerned, she said, with the border emergency authority and that the bill increased capacity for detaining immigrants. It also worried World Relief that the measure omitted a path to citizenship for those known as “Dreamers” — as people covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are sometimes called — and other undocumented immigrants.
As the bill failed, advocates noted the Democrats’ shift in their long-standing positions on immigration.
Dylan Corbett. (Courtesy photo)
Corbett recalled Biden’s criticism in his 2020 presidential campaign of the Trump administration’s wall on the southern border and Biden’s promise to restore access to asylum. “It’s shocking that the president has really reneged on those commitments and is agreeing to something that we really know is counterproductive,” Corbett said.
Corbett said it’s been clear as enforcement tactics have been tried “over and over” that they don’t work in isolation. “It’s impossible to shut down the border,” he said.
While many observers have noted the Democratic Party’s apparent willingness to yield on immigration, Hetfield focused on the Republicans’ significant change in stance over the past decades. “At one time, the Republican Party was the party of immigration because they realized it’s in our economic interest to promote a fairly generous immigration policy” for both immigrants and employers looking for labor.
Some faith-based organizations expressed support for the bill. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, a Washington- and Nashville-based office, described the bill as “in line” with the 2023 Southern Baptist resolution “On Wisely Engaging Immigration.”
“In addition to providing resources and policy changes that would make the border more secure, the proposal retains key narrow avenues for those with valid asylum claims to make their case,” Hannah Daniel, ERLC’s director of public policy, wrote on Tuesday.
Even with immigration taking a contentious place in election-year conversations, Corbett has hope. “It looks like this bill is going to go nowhere,” he said before the vote. “Hopefully, we get a second bite at the apple and are able to take the lessons learned and focus on solutions.”
As the bill flamed out, Matthew Soerens, World Relief’s vice president of advocacy and policy, said the organization is “hoping and praying” for a second shot at passing a key World Relief priority in the bill, a path to permanent legal status for Afghans paroled in the U.S. after the 2021 U.S. withdrawal.
Hetfield said HIAS also strongly supports the bill’s provisions for Afghans. “There is literally no rational basis for opposing the Afghan Adjustment Act,” he said, noting that HIAS has advocated for it since 2021. “If we can’t get that through, we can’t get anything through.”
This article originally appeared here.
