San Francisco, CA– CAA welcomes the three executive orders signed this Tuesday, February 2nd, which will  reunite the 600+ children who were separated from their families at the southern border; review Trump-era immigration practices regarding asylum processing; and address harmful policies that create unnecessary barriers to permanent residency status and US citizenship.

One executive order directs the State Department, the Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security to review Trump-era immigration policies, including the “public charge” and changes to the U.S. naturalization process, that continue to exclude working-class immigrants of color, including the Chinese immigrant communities we serve. However, CAA urges President Biden to go further and adhere to his campaign promise to reverse the public charge rule and other similar Trump-era immigration policies. 

Since 2019, the “public charge” rule has stoked fear in immigrant families who, afraid of compromising their chances to apply for lawful permanent residency, chose not to access the life-saving public benefits, for which they qualified, during a global pandemic.  Sometimes called a “wealth test” for green card applicants, the public charge rule has forced thousands of immigrant families in the San Francisco Bay Area to make impossible choices between life-sustaining benefits, and the possibility of permanent residency status. 

In partnership with 500+ immigrant rights organizations nationwide, CAA has remained vigilant in opposing the public charge rule and the rest of the Trump Administration’s anti-immigrant policy agenda, and will continue to advocate for the reversal of this agenda during the Biden Administration. For more information regarding these announcements, please contact us at (415)761-3222, or join us at our next immigrant rights workshop on Friday, February 19 from 4:00-5:00pm.  

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Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) is a community-based civil rights organization in San Francisco. Our mission is to protect the civil and political rights of Chinese Americans and to advance multiracial democracy in the United States. We advocate for systemic change that protects immigrant rights, promotes language diversity, and remedies racial injustice. 

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