Press Release

AALDEF is among the 18 Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) immigrant advocacy, labor, civil rights, community health, service provider, and undocumented youth groups calling for a new organizing coalition to secure swift passage of a clean DREAM Act.

On September 5, 2017, the Trump Administration announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, putting 800,000 DACA recipients, including over 30,000 Asian Americans, at risk for deportation. Since then, organizations have come together to form the National AAPI Immigrant Rights Organizing Table.

The mission statement of the National AAPI Immigrant Rights Organizing Table is as follows:

The Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Immigrant Rights Organizing Table was formed by a coalition of AAPI immigrant advocacy, labor, civil rights, community health, service provider and undocumented youth groups to collaborate and advocate for the swift passage of a clean DREAM Act.



By saying the bill must be “clean,” we mean that the DREAM Act should be passed without the attachment of any other provisions that would further negatively impact our immigration system. We oppose provisions that would enhance enforcement measures such as increasing the number of immigration agents, expanding the grounds of deportability or inadmissibility such as additional criminal bars, persecuting jurisdictions with policies that limit entanglement with ICE, and expanding the number of detention beds; add restrictive changes to our visa system; and further limit immigrants’ access to public benefits.



Together, we seek to mobilize AAPI communities and leverage our collective power to move elected officials and to lift up the voices and leadership of undocumented AAPIs and all AAPI communities in public immigration debates. We plan to meet these goals through collaborative legislative advocacy and direct actions, community organizing, story collection, collective work in traditional and social media and information sharing and strategizing.

The AAPI Immigrant Rights Organizing Table will be convening a two-day mobilization on November 15-16, 2017 in Washington D.C. For more information, visit aapidream.org.

Participating groups include: 18MillionRising • AALDEF calls on Asian Americans to mobilize for a clean DREAM Act • Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) • Asian Americans Advancing Justice Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO) • Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) • AFL-CIO • ASPIRE • HANA Center Korean Resource Center • NAKASEC • National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) • National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA) • National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) • OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates • OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates Greater Seattle • RAISE (Revolutionizing Asian American Immigrant Stories on the East Coast) • South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) • Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC) • The Office of Philadelphia City Councilmember Helen Gym • UPLIFT

For more information, contact:
Annie J. Wang
Staff Attorney, AALDEF
awang@aaldef.org