Nearly all Senate Democrats are calling on Donald Trump to reopen the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to new applicants following his shocking defeat at the Supreme Court last week. Tens of thousands of immigrant youth could now be eligible to apply for work permits and deportation relief since the program’s 2017 rescission, but officials have yet to say whether they can now apply.
“As the Supreme Court has recognized, it is well within your executive authority to protect Dreamers,” legislators led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois tell Trump. “Only Congress can provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, but it is up to you whether to use your administration’s authority to allow these young immigrants who have benefitted America in countless ways to continue contributing to our nation, or to continue your efforts to deport them.”
Following the Supreme Court’s historic decision last week, The Marshall Project’s Julia Preston reported that “[s]ome legal scholars argued that the administration is required to restore the program with no delay and begin taking new applications,” with Yale Law School professor Marisol Orihuela telling her: “The effect of the ruling is we go back to life as it was before September 2017.” Yet up to 66,000 young immigrants are still waiting for answers.
“The young people who are eligible for DACA, known as Dreamers, are American in every way except for their immigration status,” the senators tell Trump. “More than 800,000 Dreamers have come forward and received DACA. DACA has been vital for Dreamers, who are contributing to our country as soldiers, nurses, teachers, and small business owners, and in many other ways.”
The letter, which is signed by nearly the entire Senate Democratic caucus excluding Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Gary Peters of Michigan, Jon Tester of Montana, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, also calls on Trump to support the Dream and Promise Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives over a year ago but stalled in the Senate by Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“When you announced your repeal of DACA, you called on Congress to ‘legalize DACA,’ and today you tweeted, ‘I have wanted to take care of DACA recipients better than the Do Nothing Democrats, but for two years they refused to negotiate,’” the senators write. Of course, the truth is that it’s been Trump who has torpedoed numerous bipartisan plans to codify protections for DACA recipients. The legislation is right there just waiting for Republicans to act.
Legislators also note the vital role many DACA recipients have played amid the pandemic, even as the government of the nation they call home attacks them. One of them, intensive care nurse Jessica Esparza, wrote in The Seattle Times last month: “It’s heartbreaking to know that, as a nurse, I have everyone’s back — but everyone doesn’t have mine.”
“It would be an American tragedy to deport DACA recipients who are saving lives in the midst of this pandemic,” the senators continue in their letter to Trump. “We must ensure these talented young immigrants are not forced to stop working when the need for their public service has never been greater. And we must give them the chance they deserve to become American citizens. We, and hundreds of thousands of Dreamers, await your response.”