Campaign Action
A petition delivery of more than 325,000 signatures in support of a clean DREAM Act is just one of the events kicking off a week of actions in support of legislation to protect undocumented immigrant youth. Activists from nearly a dozen groups delivered the signatures—many from the Daily Kos community—to the office of Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, “calling on her to continue to stand strong and do everything she can to pass a clean DREAM Act with no strings attached.”
During a town hall earlier this month, Pelosi told an undocumented leader with United We Dream that she’s committed to passing a clean DREAM Act without Stephen Miller-led poison pills that will further ramp up Donald Trump’s deportation force and sweep up immigrant families and communities.
“In California alone,” stated the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Raquel Ortega during the rally at Pelosi’s San Francisco office, “there are 222,795 of our neighbors who use their DACA status to give back to our country in innumerable ways. They are our neighbors, they our families, they are our friends. They are all human beings. The end of DACA meant a new urgency to pass a clean, stand-alone DREAM Act that addresses immigrant youths’ renewed vulnerability to deportation.”
According to the Center for Popular Democracy, further actions are planned across the nation—including Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Texas—to urge congressional leaders to pass a clean DREAM Act, including “mass marches, phone banking, door-to-door canvassing in the neighborhoods of key Representatives, and information sessions for affected DACA recipients”:
“Our communities know firsthand the toll that the end of DACA has taken on their families, friends, and neighbors. Whether in Colorado or California, they have seen the terror the Trump administration has inflicted, and they are fighting back, neighborhood by neighborhood and family by family,” said Jerónimo Saldaña, Campaign Director for Immigrant Justice at the Center for Popular Democracy. “The fight for a clean Dream Act will be decided by communities rising up to defend their dignity and their future, communities who are growing stronger and more unified with every passing day. We are proud to support this fight, and we will continue supporting our communities until every immigrant is treated with respect.”
“This administration can’t keep playing politics with peoples’ lives,” Ortega continued during the rally. “There’s enough support to pass a clean version of the DREAM Act in both in the U.S. House and Senate, and we need Leader Pelosi to do everything in her power to get a clean DREAM Act passed now. Leader Pelosi, if you’ve got our back, we’ve got yours.”