“The best way to protect Dreamers and to move forward with a path to a permanent solution for all undocumented immigrants is to defeat Trump this November”
A new memo that lays the groundwork for eliminating the DACA program was issued today by the Trump Administration. While many news outlets are running with a topline analysis that the new memo “extends” the program for one year, the reality is that the program is being killed in phases.
The following is a statement by Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
The Trump administration is moving to end DACA once and for all. Their first step is a Bill Barr memo that rescinds DACA, thereby blocking some 300,000 young immigrants who are eligible for DACA from enjoying the extraordinary opportunities that DACA affords. Their second step is to give a shortened extension of one-year to those currently with DACA in hopes of ending the program once and for all if and when Trump gets reelected.
If not for the massive popularity of DACA, the administration would have aggressively moved to end that program in one fell swoop. They want to claim they are doing right by those with DACA to limit the political damage ending it all at once would cause.
Don’t be fooled. As soon as they can get away with it, they will put more than one million young immigrants who grew up in America — pledging allegiance to the flag every day in school, fighting to get jobs and study in college, and building families — on a path to deportation from the only country most have even known.
It is long overdue that this country formally recognize Dreamers as the Americans they already are. HR 6, the Dream and Promise Act approved on a bipartisan basis in the House of Representatives last year, is the permanent solution that is sorely needed. If, as expected, Republicans in the Senate continue to block it, then the least the Senate can do is enact the automatic renewals of work permits for DACA recipients and TPS holders that the House included in the HEROES Act.
Trump and his enablers have waged a relentless war on immigrants since the first week of his presidency. In response, the American people have been forced to make a choice between the blood and soil nationalism of Trumpism or the multiracial, multiethnic America celebrated in our national motto, E Pluribus Unum. The majority has chosen, and they reject Trump’s divisiveness, racism and xenophobia.
The best way to protect Dreamers and to move forward with a path to a permanent solution for all undocumented immigrants is to defeat Trump this November, to flip the Senate from Republican control to a Democratic majority, and to enact legislation that serves our interests and reflects our values.
