We said to these young people: This will be your chance. That bill was introduced a long time ago, and it has never become the
law. At one point when President Obama was in the Office of the
Presidency, I wrote him a letter with 20 of my colleagues in the Senate
and asked him to find a way, if he could, to protect these young people
from being deported out of America, and he did. They called it DACA. The DACA Program said, if you are one of the people who, by definition
under the DREAM Act, would be eligible, you can stay in the United
States if you step up and pay about $500 in a filing fee, go through a
serious criminal background check, and then we will give you a
temporary 2-year protection from deportation--2 years that you can work
legally in the United States and come back and see us if you want to
renew it. At the end of the day, about 800,000 young people in America did
that. They paid their fee. They went through the background check, they
submitted all their information to our government, and they were
protected. Just 3 months ago, President Donald Trump abolished DACA and said, as
of March 5 next year, it is gone. What does that mean for these young
people? It means that as of March 5 of next year, many of them will be
subject to deportation and subject to losing the jobs they have or
being unable to finish school because they can't work. I have met a lot of those young people. I am sure Senator Hassan has
met some.
Keywords matched
deported DACA deportation