Not only are immigrants 27 percent of the direct care workforce, including home health aides, personal health aides, and nursing assistants, many immigrants are caring for family members as well.

"My wife is my caregiver. I am a U.S. Army Disabled Veteran and USCIS does not want to grant her citizenship. We have been together and married for over 20 years.”

- Esteban, MomsRising member

Too often, immigrants, like Esteban’s wife, carry out significant caregiver responsibilities for their U.S. citizen spouses or children but live in immigration limbo without a pathway to citizenship or permanent status. 

TAKE ACTION: Help protect immigrant family caregivers! Tell the Department of Homeland Security & Department of Justice to work together for families! *When you click, you’ll automatically sign on if we already have your information.

But there’s a simple solution! And it’s within the government’s hands to resolve this, keep families together, and support caregivers. Under current laws, already in place, certain immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for 10 years, have passed background checks, and whose removal from the country would cause exceptional & extremely unusual hardship to a U.S. citizen (or green card holder) family member may request “cancellation of their removal” before an immigration judge. What this means is…certain individuals, who are already in removal proceedings, could ask the judge to “cancel” their removal if they’re a family caregiver like Esteban’s wife. But the current process requires immigrants to already be in removal proceedings.  We need to make this process more accessible for family caregivers.   

QUICK SIGN: Let’s get government agencies to work together to help protect immigrant family caregivers! *When you click, you’ll automatically sign on if we already have your information.

Here's the solution: We need the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to direct their office of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to collaborate with the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR). (Yes, it's a complicated alphabet soup!) Together, these two offices, USCIS and EOIR, would work together on rulemaking for a streamlined cancellation of removal process.

We know with our collective voices we can push USCIS and EOIR to work together and make cancellation of removal more accessible for immigrant family caregivers! We need to make it easier for family caregivers, not harder. And removing more caregivers from our communities will not only separate families, but also exacerbate the labor shortage in the caregiving professions.

SIGN ON: Tell the Department of Homeland Security & Department of Justice to use their powers and protect long-term resident caregivers! *When you click, you’ll automatically sign on if we already have your information.