2. Interim Measures

[AnthonyAú]

Platform - Green Party US
  II. Social Justice
    A2. Pathway to Citizenship
             STEPS FORWARD
                2. Interim Measures

Recognizing that a just reform of immigration policy may take some time, the Green Party supports:

  Measures to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers licenses if they can prove their identity and pass the required tests.

This will improve road safety and allow the undocumented who are driving in any case to obtain insurance.
  Measures to give legal status to undocumented immigrants who graduate from high school in the U.S. and who are otherwise qualified, to allow them to attend colleges and universities on an equal basis with other high school graduates.

The Green Party is opposed to efforts to force undocumented youth into becoming cannon fodder for the U.S. military as the price for legal status.
  Reduce wait lists and make the system work more efficiently: current numeric caps on immigrant visas must be increased.

The current system of quotas and preferences has to be thoroughly and realistically reformed. Current backlogs must be brought up to date as soon as possible.

Wait times for processing and resolving immigration benefit applications should be reduced to no more than six months.

Pre-1996 screening criteria for legal permanent residency and citizenship applications should be restored.
Immigrant workers do not compete for jobs with current citizens and should not be punished for being victims of U.S. corporatist policies.

We must stop using our tax dollars to subsidize corporate agribusiness and to promote poverty in Latin America, and start using them to help reward environmentally responsible family farmers, encourage improved infrastructure and economic conditions in Latin America, and raise labor standards, at home and abroad.

Here at home, we must also promote the policies, as outlined in the Economy and Workers' Rights sections of this Platform, that can help us achieve a full employment economy at a living wage, including strictly enforcing and expanding the rights of all workers to form unions.
  We advocate an end to employer sanctions, which have been shown to hurt not only undocumented workers but also U.S.-born workers (especially those of color).

Instead, the focus on employers must be to vigorously enforce our wage and labor laws. Instead of further victimizing the victims of corporate globalization, create real opportunities and raise labor standards for all!
  We oppose the provision of current law which allows local police to become agents of the immigration agency.

Local policing functions should be totally separate from immigration enforcement.
  Greens oppose "English-only" legislation. Immigrants already have ample incentive to learn English.

But when interaction with the government is limited to the English speaking, persons are put at additional risk of exploitation.

The focus needs to be on providing adequate and accessible English language instruction and assistance.

We advocate legislation to ensure that federal funds marked for communities to provide ESL (English as second language) training, and health and social support services to immigrants actually go to them.

When funds are spent in other areas, immigrants are being deprived of benefits that they earn as productive workers in their communities.

Meanwhile, courts, social service agencies, and all government agencies dealing with the public must provide trained and certified translators.

Additionally, the language rights of peoples who were in this land before it became part of the U.S., including Native Americans and Mexicans in the Southwest, must be recognized and respected.
  We oppose the militarization of our borders, (mis)using the National Guard as border police, and building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

This will further intensify the human rights disaster our immigration policy has become, as well as seriously harm border ecosystems.

We demand an immediate end to policies designed to force undocumented border-crossers into areas where conditions dramatically increase the risk of permanent injury or death, destruction of fragile environments, and the cutting off of corridors needed by wildlife for migration within their habitat.

For these reasons we specifically oppose the walling off of both traditional urban crossing areas and of wilderness areas.

We also call for the immediate dismantling of the border wall.

We mourn the death of those thousands of men, women and children who have died trying to cross this border, where a couple of decades ago such deaths were virtually unheard of.
  We must resist proposals that use illegal immigration as an excuse to put us all under further government monitoring and control by means of a national ID card or other identification or tracking systems.

We also oppose the imposition of the "E-Verify" system to screen people applying for jobs. Citizen workers who have been propagandized to support "tougher" measures to identify and apprehend undocumented workers need to carefully consider what they are asking for.

The same snare they want the government to use against undocumented workers can easily be used to repress them.

Our government is already engaged in illegal spying and surveillance of its own citizens. It is already invading our privacy.

A national ID card system is one of the hallmarks of a totalitarian government or police state.

We need to repeal the Real ID Act and resist the establishment of any system that would suppress freedom to travel and require citizens and non-citizens alike to "show their papers" and reveal their private information to government monitors at every turn.
We demand recognition of the sovereignty of indigenous nations whose territories cross national boundaries.

These indigenous nations have the right to determine the status of their members.
  We demand new policies and laws that deal more effectively and humanely with the victims of illegal international trafficking in humans — primarily women and children who are bought, kidnapped, coerced, brutalized, defrauded, tricked, sold and marketed for forced sex (rape) and prostitution, with an estimated 50,000 trafficked to the U.S.
  We call for stiffer, more appropriate policy, structure and laws to deal with traffickers, and also demand that procedures to deport victims before the traffickers are prosecuted must be changed to allow the victims to testify against the traffickers, which plays a major role in bringing these cases to justice and helping stem the tide of this heinous crime. The victims of trafficking should have the option of permanent residence in the U.S. or return to their home countries, according to their own choice.