Providing permanent relief to Dreamers and recipients of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is the right thing to do, not only for them, but also for the country. Yet President Trump and his anti-immigrant administration have time and again threatened these long-standing community members with deportation and forced them to live with great fear and uncertainty. People For the American Way’s African American Ministers In Action and allied organizations want to ensure that protecting them is a top “first 100 days” priority for the incoming Congress. You can download our letter here.

Dear Leader Pelosi,

We, the undersigned 326 national, state and local education, civil and human rights, LGBT, labor, national security, faith, and immigrants’ rights organizations, call on the incoming, Democratic-controlled House of Representatives to bring to the floor and send to the Senate, clean, stand-alone legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for Dreamers and recipients of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) within the first 100 days of the 116^th Congress.

In the 115^th Congress, the Dream Act of 2017 (H.R. 3440) and the American Promise Act (H.R. 4253) enjoy broad support. Because the communities addressed by these two bills have so much in common, often are part of the same families, and share an urgent need for relief, we urge you to package them together and bring them to the House floor as soon as possible after the 116^th Congress convenes.

Over the past two years, the Trump administration has taken aggressive steps to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has provided protection from deportation and work authorization to more than 820,000 participants, and to trigger the expiration of TPS for more than 300,000 people—99% of current recipients. Although lower court rulings are keeping some of these protections in place for now, the administration is moving quickly to reverse those rulings and expose these long-standing community members to the threat of deportation as soon as possible.

Immigrant youth and TPS recipients live, work, study, and are a part of our communities in every congressional district, and they are the parents, spouses, and siblings of hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens. Eliminating their status after so many years would separate countless families and needlessly disrupt settled, productive lives and businesses.

Providing permanent relief to immigrant youth and TPS recipients is the right thing to do, not only for them, but also for the country. Doing so could increase the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) by more than $1 trillion over the next ten years and raise the average per capita incomes of all Americans. In states devastated in recent years by unprecedented natural disasters, including California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, tens of thousands of people with TPS currently work in construction, literally helping to rebuild damaged communities.

As Democrats develop an agenda focused on solving problems, you have the opportunity to pass legislation offering permanent protections to Dreamers and TPS recipients who are now living with great fear and uncertainty. We ask that you do so within the first 100 days of the 116^th Congress.