President Obama recently announced an important decision that will keep American families together.

Current immigration law requires undocumented children and spouses of U.S. citizens to leave the country in order to complete the legal immigration process. Once they leave the country, however, they are often barred from returning to the United States for up to ten years.

President Obama’s proposal would allow them to complete the legal immigration process without leaving the country, avoiding the undue hardship of separating American families for extended periods of time.

After the President’s announcement, I participated in a call with other community leaders to discuss how this would impact our diverse populations and heard from several Americans about how this is a step in the right direction.

This rule change will help many immigrant families, including Asian Americans, who are more likely than any other group to have relatives caught in the visa backlogs -- and in proportions that far outpace our percentage of the population. By making that backlog more fair and easier to navigate, the Obama administration will help millions of Asian American families stay together.

Like Americans of every background and political belief, Asian Americans overwhelmingly support smart solutions to fixing our broken immigration system, and to keeping families and communities together.

Join me today in standing with the President for this big step forward on immigration policy – get involved with AAPIs for Obama.