When you get out to vote this November, when you remind your friends and family of the importance of this election, when you cast your ballot for progressive candidates over complicit toadies, remember the Dreamers. This September marked one year since Donald Trump rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, leaving the lives of hundreds of thousands of young immigrants in limbo. Thanks to legal action from fierce advocates, DACA lives, but DACA recipients are still waiting for permanent legislation.
“For many months now,” writes Carla Liliana Espinosa, “Dreamers like me have been living in a state of high anxiety. One day, we hear Congress plans to vote on a Dream Act and provide us a clear path to citizenship. The next day, the vote is called off. One day we hear DACA protections will be held hostage for funding for a border wall. Next we are told we have to wait until after the midterms.” Espinosa, in fact, nearly lost her job over congressional Republicans refusing to clean up Trump’s mess by passing permanent legislation.
A few months after Trump’s announcement, Espinosa, who came to the U.S. with her parents when she was just three months old, was asked by the bank she had worked at for two years to provide proof of work authorization. She had an emailed receipt from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that processes DACA renewals, but, she continues, “I was told I had to clock out immediately. I wasn’t able to return for three months, when the hard copy finally arrived.”
Put yourself in their shoes and imagine the domino effect of not just being out of a job, but not being able to work legally, period. Even more frightening is the prospect of losing protection from deportation. The administration has already tried to sweep up DACA recipients, and has faced fierce blowback over it. Now imagine losing that protection and being sent to a country you have no recollection of or haven’t lived in since you were three months old.
DACA recipients are anxious over expiration dates and never-ending court battles, but in no way are they throwing their hands up in defeat.
“Whether it’s knocking on doors, making calls or registering voters on campus, Houston youth are taking action” to create change this November, reports Houston Public Media. “Across the country, and here in Houston,” said United We Dream leader Julieta Garibay, “we have not seen youth involvement at this level since immigrant youth won DACA in 2012.” This spirit is trademark Dreamer, but they can only do so much. They need voters to kick out legislators who won't do their jobs. They need us.
“Fix it, a Dreamer urges Congress. Fix it, a federal judge urges. Approximately three-quarters of the American people, according to most polls, echo their call,” stated the Houston Chronicle editorial board. “Meanwhile, a craven Congress dithers—and, we hate to say, will continue to dither until voters decide, perhaps in a few weeks, that enough’s enough. Assuring the legal status of Dreamers and allowing them to get on with their lives in this country is a relatively easy task, particularly if a new crop of conscientious lawmakers arrives in Washington next January.” To do that, we must get out and win.
Enough is enough. Let’s sweep in a Congress this November that will finally protect America’s Dreamers. Please take time right now to give $3 to the effort to flip control of the Senate.