Bipartisan virtual summit calls for overhaul of the immigration system
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MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – The Immigration Partnership & Coalition Fund, a Miami-Dade-based organization that advocates for undocumented immigrants’ rights through bipartisan action, hosted a virtual summit on Thursday.
Billionaire Mike Fernandez, who was born in Cuba, grew up in New York, and now lives in Coral Gables, founded the IMPAC Fund in 2017 as the Florida chapter of the American Business Immigration Coalition, which promotes immigration reform.
“Immigration should change during 2021,” Fernandez said. “To remain as it is, it’s simply unacceptable.”
The summit comes as Democrats are focusing on the new immigration bill that President Joe Biden sent to Congress and before former President Donald Trump appears at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando.
Monica Lazaro speaking at an Americans for Immigrant Justice event
DACA recipient Monica Lazaro, MPH ’21, is advocating for health policies that will help immigrants and others left behind
February 10, 2021 – At age 9, Monica Lazaro got the news every child dreams about: Her family was going to Disney World. When she arrived at the airport in her native Honduras, however, it seemed strange that everyone she knew was there. “My grandma was crying and I remember telling her I’d bring her a plush Minnie Mouse and everything would be okay,” Lazaro says. It was only years later, living in Miami, that she pieced together the truth: Her father had been robbed at gunpoint inside his clothing store in San Pedro Sula and the family had fled the country’s rising gang violence for Florida. She also found out that, after overstaying their visas, they had become undocumented immigrants.