Almost three years after the University of California (UC) became the first university to sue the Department of Homeland Security for its rescission of DACA, UC applauded the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the end of a program that allowed immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to live and work in the country they know as home.
“Justice and the rule of law won the day,” said UC President Janet Napolitano. “The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the University of California and the California attorney general’s challenge against the Trump administration’s capricious action is a victory for hundreds of thousands of young people who are making vital contributions to their families, schools, employers and the nation.”
FWD.us, an organization founded by business and tech leaders in 2013 to help fix the immigration system, said the Supreme Court ruling announced Thursday is a win for DACA recipients, their families, and communities across America.
“This ruling was only possible because of the courage and resiliency of hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients who bravely stood up and refused to be ignored,” read an email signed by Todd Schulte, president, FWD.us
Schulte urged DACA recipients, who have lived in fear of losing their jobs, homes, and loved ones, to celebrate the victory by emailing their Senators to urge them to pass the Dream and Promise Act, which would finally provide Dreamers with permanent legislative protections.
“DACA recipients represent 200,000 essential workers, including nearly 30,000 health care workers, like doctors and nurses, who are helping communities across the country survive the COVID-19 crisis — and now they will be able to continue to work to protect their communities. But we know that DACA doesn’t provide permanent protection for these young people,” the letter said.
Last fall, 143 business associations and companies filed a friend of the court document in support of Dreamers.
In a related statement, Greisa Martinez Rosas, DACA recipient and deputy executive director of United We Dream Action, said immigrant young people and their allies have kept nearly 700,000 people protected from deportation.
Georgetown University student Arisaid Gonzalez Porras said she was 16 years old when she first got DACA protections.
“In that time, DACA has allowed me to dream big, it has allowed me to travel, to work, to feel like the rest of my peers,” she said in the statement. “Yet, this is not enough. DACA is still only a temporary permit and doesn’t protect the over 11 million undocumented people living in this country.”
In March 2019, United We Dream issued a statement in support of Congress Members Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) and Yvette Clarke (D-NY) introducing the Dream and Promise Act to provide a pathway to citizenship for immigrants.
The 2019 Dream and Promise Act builds upon the Dream Act, and the bill provides a pathway to citizenship for immigrant youth and beneficiaries of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Enforcement Departure (DED) programs.
“The immigrant youth and families of United We Dream wholeheartedly support the passage of the Dream and Promise Act in the House of Representatives,” said Cristina Jimenez, executive director and co-founder of United We Dream. “The bill includes groundbreaking policy changes which will set the stage for immigration reform bills of the future.”
Nancy Treviño of FIRM Action, a grassroots effort of individuals and organizations to build support for humane comprehensive immigration reform, said that the DREAM and American Promise Act of 2019 legislation would create a road map to citizenship.
The original Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, or DREAM Act, was introduced in 2001.
On May 11, 2011, the DREAM Act was reintroduced in the Senate (S. 952) by Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and in the House of Representatives (H.R. 1842) by Howard Berman (D-Calif.), Illeana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.).
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