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Dear {{ user.first_name|default:”Friend” }},
Last week, President Obama told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that the Latino community needs to have his back. He says that we have to be patient, have a little more trust, wait a little bit longer for relief.1
But we can’t wait. Thousands more of our families will be torn apart and thousands more of our undocumented friends, relatives, colleagues, classmates, and neighbors will face the horrors of midnight ICE raids and mass deportations between now and the election.
We’re sad. We’re angry. And we need the President to have our backs.
For months, President Obama promised that he, and the rest of the nation, were done with Republican obstructionism on immigration reform. But a group of cowardly Senate Democratic politicians and operatives, fearful of losing the Senate to Republicans, urged President Obama to once again put the brakes on executive action.2
And the truth is that the longer the President waits to take action, the less likely it is that he will take action at all. He’s already delayed making a decision several times and there are no guarantees that he will not delay again in response to some other political game that might pop up in the future.
More than 1,000 deportations per day were recorded last year alone. With each passing day, even more of our families are torn apart in traumatic home raids by ICE. Children have had to witness their parents being handcuffed in front of them in the middle of the night, and are sometimes even put in detention centers, alone, when they have no other family to care for them in the U.S.3
The debate over executive action from the President can’t be about political games, as if we were talking about a mere game of tit for tat. We are talking about a real crisis, with real families being torn apart by deportations — members of our community who have waited long enough for relief. We all need to take a stand right now if we want to drown out the voices stopping an executive action that would provide relief to the 11 million immigrants waiting for an end to deportations.
Please join us in telling the President that we need executive action for all 11 million right now!
Thanks, and ¡Adelante!
Arturo, Refugio, Mariana, and the rest of the Presente.org Team
P.S. Can you donate $5 to support our work? We rely on contributions from people like you to see campaigns like this through.
Sources:
1. Obama Faces Latino Audience Frustrated Over Immigration, National Journal, October 2, 2014
2. 5 Democratic senators join failed effort to block Obama on immigration, Los Angeles Times, September 18, 2014
3. Obama’s immigration action could set off political firestorm, MSNBC, August 6, 2014