A recording of today’s event is available here
Washington, DC – Today, Senators Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) joined Felipe Salazar, a California Dreamer, to discuss the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program; the invaluable contributions of Dreamers; and the need to protect DACA and Dreamers. A recording of today’s call is available here.
According to Senator Harris, “DACA was created with a very important purpose: to allow young people who were brought here as children to come out of the shadows and live without fear. In five years, thousands of DACA recipients have gone to college, filled jobs in high demand areas, opened small businesses, given back to their communities, and served in the military. And now DACA is under assault by this Administration. We must keep America’s promise to these young people.”
According to Senator Cortez Masto, “DREAMers are fighters. They never give up. These extraordinary young men and women deserve to have certainty and security that they will be able to live, work and serve our communities. Efforts to intimidate and deport these young people to score political points and embrace politics based on hate is wrong. I am proud to be a cosponsor of the DREAM Act and I will continue to do everything in my power to protect DREAMers and their families.”
According to Felipe Salazar, a California DACA-recipient, “DACA is an invaluable program that enables career and life opportunities, allows us to contribute to our communities, and provides us with peace of mind. I am very proud of what us DREAMERS have been able to accomplish under DACA and look forward to our future contributions to the country that we have grown up in and always loved.”
At the age of ten, Felipe Salazar and his family fled Colombia to escape the constant violence of guerilla warfare. Salazar recalls a vivid memory during his childhood in Colombia of an aircraft hovering overhead and heavily firing into a nearby mountain. In the States, he has proven to be a student of high merit and earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Engineering. The DACA program has enabled him to work for Microsoft and now Doppler Labs, a tech startup in San Francisco.
Tuesday marks the fifth anniversary of the implementation of the DACA program, and it is currently under threat like never before. Led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a group of anti-immigrant hardliners – in and out of government – are demanding that President Trump kill DACA by September 5th. If not, Paxton plans to bring the matter before Judge Andrew Hanen, the notorious anti-immigrant judge who blocked the implementation of DAPA until it, too, was killed off by the Trump Administration.
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