As the nation’s only philanthropic-mobilizing organization focused on moving money and power to immigrant, refugee, and asylum seeker communities, GCIR's public policy platform is intended to heighten philanthropic awareness of, and support for, key priorities of the immigrant justice movement.
Informed by GCIR staff analysis and input from immigrant justice movement leaders, our policy agenda aims to address the challenges that deny individuals the freedom to stay, move, work, transform, and thrive, including racial capitalism and militarism. Our policy agenda also reflects potential solutions identified by the immigrant justice movement for addressing these challenges.
By sharing our policy priorities, we are highlighting for GCIR members and the broader philanthropic community immigration policy issues we believe warrant consideration for support, whether through direct investments or by amplifying and advancing the work through institutional platforms and relationships. GCIR’s policy platform will change and evolve in response to emerging developments, and we will continue to update these priorities going forward.
Among the questions GCIR considers when evaluating potential policy priorities are:
- Is the issue of significant importance to and identified as ripe for action by the immigrant justice movement?
- Is philanthropy’s voice absent from the discussion of this issue, and could philanthropy have influence on the outcome?
- Does the policy advance love, solidarity, dignity, power, and abundance with and for communities?
The following are GCIR’s initial 2023 policy priorities:
National Priorities
- Oppose the 287(g) program, ending agreements between Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) and local law enforcement which deputize police officers to act as federal ICE agents.
- Support the reintroduction and passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would give Afghan evacuees a path to citizenship before the September 2023 expiration of their current parole status.
- Support revisions to the Asylum and Credible Fear Interim Final Rule that would provide additional time and resources for asylum seekers to obtain legal counsel and navigate the adjudication process.
- Support a legislative solution that provides citizenship and security for the more than 800,000 individuals and families that benefited from Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
- Support the reintroduction and passage of the LIFT the BAR Act, which would remove barriers to health care, nutrition, and other basic assistance programs for lawfully permanent residents.
- Oppose the utilization of Title 42 and the recently proposed "Asylum Ban," both of which would further deny individuals and families the ability to pursue asylum claims.
State Priorities
- Support the legislative and administrative efforts to prevent California state prisons and county jails from transferring individuals to ICE detention centers.
- Support the passage of the Access to Representation Act (SB999) in New York, which would expand legal representation for immigrants in deportation proceedings regardless of income.
- Support the passage of an essential piece of legislation that would allow Michigan state residents, regardless of immigration status, to obtain a driver’s license. Currently, 18 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico have similar laws in place.
Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash
Last Updated 3.28.23