May 2017: Protecting DREAMers from Deportation
The sands of time are running through the DACA Hourglass. Help protect the DREAMers before it is too late!
There are over 700,000 “DREAMers”* in the United States, undocumented immigrants who arrived here as children and were raised in this country. The Obama administration created Deferred Action for Childhood (“DACA”) to help them. DACA is not a pathway to citizenship, rather it protects Dreamers from deportation for a limited period of time them security against deportation and the ability to work lawfully. To qualify, applicants must have come to the United States as children; developed deep roots in the country and become valuable contributors to their community; be in high school or have a diploma or be a veteran; and they cannot have been convicted of a felony or major misdemeanor.
DACA is set to expire. Failure to renew it will be disastrous; not only can these law-abiding individuals who have little memory of any home other than U.S. be deported to their country of origin, what is, in effect, a foreign country, but also they are easy targets for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement because under DACA they are registered with the federal government!
“The Bridge Act (S. 128/H.R. 496) is a bipartisan bill that would allow DACA recipients and those eligible for DACA to apply for “provisional protected presence” and work authorization for a three-year period. The bill would also impose restrictions on the sharing of information in DACA and provisional protected presence applications with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection for purposes of immigration enforcement.”
As Jews, we are commanded to protect the strangers in our land. (Leviticus 19:33-34). Click here to stop the deportation clock from running.
LINK: http://action.rac.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=24029
*The acronym “DREAMer” comes from the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, proposed legislation that benefited illegal immigrants who, among other criteria, came to the United States before age 16 and have lived in the U.S. for at least five consecutive years since the date of arrival. It failed to pass.
