Then in
September, in this administration, the President made an announcement
to end the program, to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
Program. The President imposed, I would argue, an arbitrary deadline of
March 5 of next year, which is looming now. Something on the order of
20,000 DACA recipients have already lost their protection from
detention and deportation, and I believe that it is critical for
Congress to act now to pass the bipartisan Dream Act. What are we talking about here? We are talking about young people who arrived in this country, in
many cases, at very, very young ages--some of them babies, some of them
young children at the time. When you hear their stories, you come away
impressed that they have succeeded, that they have become part of the
fabric of American life. In a meeting a couple of months ago--sitting in a conference room,
around a long conference table with other DACA recipients, because of
the looming deadline and the potential that she could lose the status
she has now and be deported--one DACA recipient said to me: The only
country I have ever known doesn't want me--or at least she was
reflecting that the policy the administration had enunciated seemed to
send a message to her that she was not wanted. This makes no sense at all on a number of fronts, and I will get to
each of them in a moment, but I will start with the word ``promise.''
These young people were made a promise by our government. It was made
by the President of the United States of America when he said: Come
forward, and we will protect you because you have taken that
affirmative step forward.
Keywords matched
deported DACA deportation