Washington, DC – This week, as the nation commemorates the eleven year anniversary of the announcement of the popular and successful Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Republicans continued to attack DACA and obstruct a legislative fix for Dreamers, even going the extra mile in citing DACA as a reason to impeach the current DHS Secretary.
Beyond the legal limbo faced by Dreamers due to Republicans’ ongoing legal challenge to DACA and beyond Republicans’ continued legislative obstruction to a long overdue permanent fix, Republicans this week used protections for Dreamers and DACA as supposed evidence for why DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has supposedly engaged in a “dereliction of duty.”
A report issued from Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) and Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee is exactly what you’d expect if you’ve been tracking their messaging and pursuit of a sham impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas as we have – a collection of false, misleading, and ugly political attack messages. Read the accompanying takedown of the Rep. Green “report” by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council here – marking up the original GOP version with helpful analysis and correctives.
Yet the report also was unintentionally revealing about the GOP’s extremism and hostility to solutions favored by the overwhelming majority of the public. In a list of “effective policies ended” by the Biden Administration that were put in place during the Donald Trump/Stephen Miller era, the GOP report includes “Rolling Back DACA” and cites positively the Trump effort to rescind DACA and negatively the Biden effort to “fortify and protect DACA” (see page 9 of GOP report and note the helpful markup from Reichlin-Melnick on the subject).
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director at America’s Voice:
“Dreamers are Americans in all but their official paperwork and, on DACA’s anniversary and every day, offer reminders why securing their futures in this country is a popular and essential priority for the nation.
It’s bad enough that Republicans are trying to overturn DACA in the courts and have succeeded in blocking new applicants into the program, leaving Dreamers both with and without DACA in limbo. And it’s bad enough that Republicans in Congress, with too few exceptions, continue to block a legislative fix that Dreamers and the nation need.
But to also use Dreamers’ protections as supposed evidence in a sham Sec. Mayorkas impeachment – during DACA anniversary week of all weeks – is a sad reflection of Republicans’ hearts and minds and the extreme MAGA bubble in which they are operating. Republicans are simply out of step with the American people on DACA and legal status for long-term, deeply-rooted immigrants. It’s the type of unintentionally revealing example that captures so much about the current moment and the 2023 Republican Party.”
- Read Yuna Oh and Vanessa Cárdenas reflections ahead of the DACA anniversary
- Read Gabe Ortiz at the America’s Voice blog, “Despite Legal Challenges Launched By GOP States, Young Immigrants Continue to Thrive Under DACA.”
- Read Yuna Oh’s op-ed in the Baltimore Sun from November 2022: “Despite what judges say, America is my home”
Follow Vanessa Cárdenas, Douglas Rivlin, Mario Carrillo, Zachary Mueller and America’s Voice on Twitter: @VCardenasDC and @douglasrivlin and @_mariocarrillo_ and @ZacharyAMueller and @AmericasVoice
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