Campaign Action
In California, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program hits especially close to the heart. The largest population of DACA recipients in the nation call the state home, and they have built families, careers, and lives there. But if Congress fails to pass the DREAM Act, the economic and human costs of uprooting 200,000 California families will be nothing short of devastating. Knowing this—and that Senate Republicans need Democratic support to pass the government spending bill—the state’s junior senator, Kamala Harris, was the first member of the upper chamber to say that she would withhold her vote for it unless it included the DREAM Act. However, the state’s senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, has yet to join her:
Feinstein said in October that protections for so-called Dreamers are “the most important thing we can get done,” but the senator known for her moderate bent said this week that she won’t try to block the end-of-the-year spending bill over it, and has not offered an explanation.
Dreamers this week flooded Feinstein’s five California offices and her office on Capitol Hill. Two UCLA students refused to leave her Capitol Hill office after three hours Tuesday and were briefly detained by police. On Wednesday, about a dozen students and parents returned and were asked to leave after about 30 minutes of shouting in her office lobby.
Every day that Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refuse to allow a DREAM Act to come to a vote, 122 DACA recipients lose their work permits, driver’s licenses, and protections from deportation. Already, 12,000 DACA recipients have fallen out of status. This is an emergency, and immigrant youth are in the fight of their lives. “No more talk,” allies and undocumented youth from the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium (NAKASEC) chanted at the demonstration at Sen. Feinstein’s Washington, D.C. office. “California deserves action, California deserves a fighter. If you are a leader, come out.”
According to Roll Call, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has issued a letter “urging her Democratic colleagues to vote against a bill to fund the government past Dec. 22. The California Democrat says she and Senate Democrats are insisting on parity for domestic and national security spending, as well as a solution for undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. Until they get those assurances, she wrote in a Dear Colleague letter, ‘we continue to urge a strong NO on the Continuing Resolution.’” According to the Los Angeles Times, Sen. Feinstein is also getting pressure from the House asking her to help hold the line:
Rep. Nanette Barragán of San Pedro, whose cousin is among the Dreamers anxiously waiting a resolution, said she called Feinstein Wednesday to urge her to help block the spending bill.
“This is an opportunity right now to make Republicans come to the table. They shouldn’t need our votes, and frankly in the Senate they do and this is an opportunity to get those protections that they keep telling us they want for Dreamers as well,” Barragán said. “I hope that she would stand with the Dreamers on this issue. It’s a critical time.”
"I will not vote for an end-of-year spending bill until we are clear about what we are going to do to protect and take care of our DACA young people in this country," Sen. Harris said back in October. "Each day in the life of these young people is a very long time, and we've got to stop playing politics with their lives. Right now we are at a moment in time where we have got to understand that this is something we cannot play politics with, when we have hundreds of thousands of young people who are terrified because we have not been able to keep our word. That tells us all we’ve got some work to do.”
As undocumented immigrant youth and allies continue to light the fire under Republicans—in particular the 34 House Republicans who sent a letter to Speaker Ryan urging a DACA vote as soon as possible—Democrats must continue holding the line for Dreamers. Dozens of governors, mayors, attorneys general, and the majority of Americans across the aisle want and support a solution for 800,000 undocumented immigrant youth, and they want it now.