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ICYMI: Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez Issues Clarion Call to Defend DACA and TPS

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On Wednesday, in a speech on the floor of Congress, Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL) issued a call to action to resist the latest threats coming from the Trump Administration in its war on immigrants and refugees. In the coming weeks, the Bannon-Miller-Sessions wing of the Administration is pushing to end DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) for nearly 800,000 Dreamers, and to revoke TPS (Temporary Protected Status) for some 400,000 immigrants from 10 countries.

According to Gutiérrez:

Fighting for DACA and fighting to keep millions of people in this country who have put down roots and built lives here is going to be a people’s fight.  And the effort to find ways to protect families and cope with more than a million people being pushed into the black market requires us to organize in every community.

If you marched with your pink hat at the Women’s March, I am asking you now on behalf of immigrants and the very future of immigration to stand with us….At airports across the country we stood up for refugees and said no to Trump’s Muslim ban, we need you. Black Lives Matter, we need you and frankly, we need each other. People are going to peacefully stand up and fight for justice, common sense, and what is right – and we need everyone to be there with us, helping us, walking with us.

It is up to us to teach each other how we will resist this latest insult – in our congregations, in schools and universities, in cities and neighborhoods.  And immigrants or people who have DACA or TPS cannot do this on their own, but they need to be part of the coalition that fights back.

The fact that Congressman Gutiérrez, our movement’s champion, is issuing such a call indicates how critical the moment is. It is increasingly clear that the Trump Administration is going for broke on its mass deportation agenda, and strong resistance will be needed to slow or stop it.

See Gutiérrez’s speech in its entirety here.

See America’s Voice Education Fund’s statement on why we need a permanent legislative solution for Dreamers here.