Campaign Action
Some 150 Dreamers from nearly 30 states are hitting congressional offices in Washington today to call on legislators to pass the bipartisan DREAM Act, which would put undocumented immigrant youth on a path to citizenship. The visits come at an incredibly critical time: the Oct. 5 deadline set up by the Trump administration for eligible Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to submit their renewals is just hours away. With lives and futures at stake, immigrant youth hope members of Congress will finally be spurred to act:
When Elizabeth Vilchis of Ridgefield Park was in college, she and some classmates started a tech company that now employs hundreds of part-time workers. Daniella Vieira of Somerset, who was brought to the United States from Brazil when she was 11, now works as a financial analyst for one of the state's largest employers.
They are among about 100 immigrants from 28 states who traveled to Washington on Tuesday to lobby Republican lawmakers to support legislation that would grant legal status to immigrants who are living in the country without authorization and were brought to the United States as children.
The women are supposed to meet with GOP representatives from New Jersey on Wednesday.
“The value of us going down there is sharing our personal stories and to remind them that we are part of their community,’’ Vieira said. “These are people that are your co-workers, your kids’ classmates, your neighbors and your friends, and what are you going to do about it?”
Following Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III’s announcement last month that Trump was ending the program, the administration gave DACA recipients just one month to submit their renewal forms if they had DACA status expiring between September and March 5, 2018. According to the New York Times, more than 150,000 DACA recipients are eligible to reapply, but tens of thousands remain outstanding. And, if United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) does not receive their paperwork by tomorrow (Thursday, Oct. 5), eligible DACA recipients will not be able to renew again.
Throughout the week, members of Congress and immigrant rights activists have urged DACA recipients to submit their renewal forms to USCIS as soon as possible, with advocates calling on the federal government to, at the very least, extend what former American Immigration Lawyers Association president David Leopold rightfully calls a totally “arbitrary” deadline. But the administration has refused to. Leopold:
The arbitrary October 5, 2017 DACA renewal deadline set by the Trump administration is unfair and should have been extended. But Trump did not extend the deadline. So DACA recipients must get their DACA renewals in by Thursday, October 5, 2017. That means that DACA renewal applications must be received by USCIS no later than Thursday, October 5, 2017. Those DACA recipients who have not yet renewed, must send in their applications today via priority overnight courier (FedEx, DHL, UPS) to the address listed on the USCIS website.
And, it’s important to ensure all addresses are correct, the fee check is correct, pictures are included, and all forms submitted are 100 percent accurate, or they could be rejected by USCIS. With this deadline and so many other worries hanging over their heads, the undocumented immigrant youth visiting members of Congress today are stressing the fierce urgency of now and why we must pass a clean version of the bipartisan DREAM Act as soon as possible:
“Hopefully congress members will have a change of heart and be able to feel compassion about us and actually get a plan together,” said Marco Antonio Ortiz Sanchez, a freshman at University of California, Irvine. “It’s very stressful living like this day to day, not knowing what is going to happen next. It’s scary.”
You can help support undocumented immigrant youth by making a call to your member of congress today to demand a clean vote on the bipartisan DREAM Act.