NJ Call-In to Support Child Citizen Protection Act

In the family, which is a community of persons, special attention must be devoted to the children by developing a profound esteem for their personal dignity, and a great respect and generous concern for their rights. ... By fostering and exercising a tender and strong concern for every child that comes into this world, the Church fulfills a fundamental mission: for she is called upon to reveal and put forward anew in history the example and the commandment of Christ the Lord, who placed the child at the heart of the Kingdom of God: "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." from FAMILIARIS CONSORTIO by Pope John Paul II

On March 3rd groups from American Friends Service Committee and Families for Freedom will be in Washington, DC lobbying congress about the Child Citizen Protection Act. Please call your congressman that day and ask him to co-sponsor H.R. 182.

About the Bill

An estimated 3.1 million US citizen children have at least one parent who is undocumented. Every year thousands of children are either separated from a parent who has been deported or forced into exile.

Under the current law, judges are not allowed to consider the impact on minor US citizen children when deciding whether or not to deport a parent. The Child Citizen Protection Act would allow immigration judges to consider whether deportation is "clearly against the best interests of a US citizen child".

To read the entire bill click here.


Don’t know how to contact your congressman?

Go to www.congress.org and type in your zip-code

Talking points:

* We should be doing everything we can to keep families together.

* Current immigration law provides no option to the presiding judge in a deportation case to consider the harm of separation of the child who is a US citizen from their parent.

* There are an estimated 2 million families in the U.S. with mixed immigration status.

* These families have approximately 3.1 million U.S. citizen children.

* The current immigration law routinely breaks apart these families.

* The children who are left behind in single parent households suffer emotionally, and financially. Many join the welfare roles. Some have to leave school to go to work.

* I value family unity and believe that these children should be provided with every opportunity to be raised in a stable and unified family.