ONLINE: United Front for Five Priorities in Build Back Better Act

media release: Today, Tuesday, September 14, Voces de la Frontera is hosting a virtual, bilingual panel discussion to highlight the five issue areas that would receive historic levels of investments in Congress's Build Back Better Act: citizenship for millions, just housing, the care economy, the climate crisis and education.  These key areas of social infrastructure require historic investments in order to "Build Back Better" from the global pandemic and honor the sacrifices of essential workers. 

Leaders in each issue area will join Voces' Executive Director, Christine Neumann-Ortiz, to discuss the ways these major investments will impact our communities and how they connect to the struggle to create a path to citizenship for millions of essential workers, Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders and their families this year. 

Panelists will include Victoria Gutierrez a Latina nurse and member of SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin to speak on the care economy; Reverend Greg Lewis from Souls to the Polls and Bruce Colburn from Housing Justice Now to speak on just housing; Christine Neumann-Oritz to speak on immigration reform with a path to citizenship; Nick Levendofsky of the Wisconsin Farmers Union to speak on the climate crisis; and Liz Franczyk of AFT Local 212 to speak on education.

Neumann-Ortiz said, "Democrats must deliver on Biden’s promise for citizenship for millions during his first year in office.  We cannot Build Back Better without including all frontline workers and their families.  One in five essential workers are undocumented immigrants whose immigration status has made them more vulnerable to retaliation from employers,  created barriers to testing and vaccines that require state IDs, social security numbers, or health insurance and threatens their jobs if employers require proof of vaccination that exposes their status. While immigrants pay for public health care through their tax contributions they are ineligible themselves and have not received any cash and unemployment benefits during the pandemic. Immigrant workers and their families support and will benefit from the five priorities in this historic budget bill.”

When & Where: Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. CST  via Zoom. Click here to register. 

The virtual press conference will also be streamed via Facebook live at facebook.com/VocesdelaFronteraWI. 

Why: This fall, Democrats in Congress are poised to pass the Build Back Better Act, a historic budget reconciliation bill that would invest $3.5 trillion in measures that boost five critical aspects of social infrastructure: just housing, the care economy, citizenship for millions, education and the climate crisis. Democrats in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives passed the bill in August, and the Senate  Judiciary Committee began marking up portions of the Build Back Better Act yesterday, including the portion that includes citizenship for millions of undocumented esential workers, Dreamers and TPS holders.