Immigrant youth and their legal representatives are calling on the Supreme Court to consider the devastating consequences of ending DACA in light of the current COVID-19 crisis. In a letter sent to the Court today, lawyers argue terminating the protections would further undermine public health and the economy when the country can least afford it.
The following is a statement by Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
We at America’s Voice have watched with dismay and alarm as the Supreme Court has increasingly morphed into enablers of Trump’s war on immigrants. The pattern is disturbingly familiar: Stephen Miller and his acolytes implement a radical and illegal policy aimed at terrorizing and denying immigrants and refugees; lower courts block the implementation of the illegal policy; the administration requests expedited review by the Supreme Court; and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court greenlights the Trump/Miller policy.
Despite the fact that lower courts have consistently ruled that DACA should be allowed to continue because the administration’s termination of the program was executed in an unlawful fashion, SCOTUS seems poised to play out the pattern and rip work authorization away from Dreamers and put them on a path to deportation.
We join the call on the Supreme Court to step back and remove the threat of deportation for 700,000 DACA recipients. As a nation, we need all hands on deck to fight the coronavirus and DACA recipients are doing more than their fair share to address the crisis. More than 27,000 DACA recipients work as nurses, doctors, and other health care workers at a time when frontline first responders are risking their lives for the sake of the nation. DACA recipients work in a range of occupations — from cleaners to grocery store clerks to food production to teachers to doctors — that are critical to getting our nation to the other side of this once-in-a-century crisis.
The way America gets through this crisis is by coming together as one. Every institution must do its part to step up and make courageous decisions to contribute to the cause. The Supreme Court can do its part by ruling to keep the DACA program alive.
