Washington, DC — Tomorrow is the twelfth anniversary of the popular and successful Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“The solution to providing permanent citizenship and protections for Dreamers is legislation two decades overdue and blocked by congressional Republicans. But there are important steps forward for Dreamers, DACA-eligible young people, and other long-term, deeply rooted immigrants that are on the table this year via executive actions. The broader stakes of the 2024 elections for Dreamers are existential and coming into ever sharper relief by the day: it’s protections versus deportations.”
Next Tuesday, the White House will host a DACA anniversary event that could double as a celebration of a potential announcement for affirmative protections for the spouses of U.S. citizens, as has been rumored in the press. For an estimated over 90,000 Dreamers with and without DACA protections, along with hundreds of thousands of other long-term residents, the potential policy announcement would be life-changing and represent another chance for new opportunities and protections in the same spirit of DACA.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump and allies are reiterating their pledge of mass deportations in a Trump second term, including the promise that the deportations would be unsparing and target Dreamers and other long-settled immigrants.
Vanessa Cárdenas concluded:
“Protections, opportunities, and citizenship for Dreamers is a rare point of consensus across the American political spectrum, as is opposition to the idea of making Dreamers and long-term immigrants a priority for deportation. It is only among the increasingly extreme congressional Republicans and the MAGA movement that securing Dreamers’ futures in this country is controversial. Instead, they are proposing deportation, preventing legal status and blocking citizenship.”
Key Resources
- Read the Home is Here coalition press release following a press conference in Washington, D.C., to call on President Biden to expand and strengthen relief for DACA recipients, DACA-eligible youth, and their communities here.
- Read the America’s Voice memo from Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas: “Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plan is the Central Immigration Focus of His 2024 Campaign and Should Be Covered That Way.”
- Read recent America’s Voice analysis, “Trump’s 2024 Version of “Stop the Steal” Inextricable from Anti-Immigrant Focus”
