Senators reintroduce 'DREAM Act' to protect young immigrants from deportation. Will C

Take it as you may. 24 long years.


"A bipartisan group of U.S. senators are reintroducing the “Dream Act” to protect millions of younger immigrants from deportation.

Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, who sponsored the Dream Act 24 years ago, is co-sponsoring the latest version with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska.

The proposed legislation faces a very challenging road ahead to get the House, Senate and President Trump to approve it.

The bill would create a path to lawful permanent residence for young immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. They have been dubbed “The Dreamers.”

Immigrants in the U.S. would have to meet specific education, military service, or work requirements to earn legal residency.

“These young immigrants [were] brought to the United States as children,” said Durbin in a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday.


“Like millions of American children… [they] grew up dreaming of getting their first job, passing their driver’s license test, and applying to college. But they had a problem. Under the current law, they were not legal to do those things.

“So the Dream Act gives them a chance, if brought to the United States as children, [to] have a path to citizenship after earning their way in a rather long and rigorous process,” Durbin said.

Durbin and Sens. Alex Padilla, a Democrat from California, and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, held a news conference Thursday in Washington to promote the legislation.

“For decades, gridlock and partisan politics have forced Dreamers to live in limbo. And under the Trump Administration, they now have to fear being swept up in Trump’s cruel mass deportation campaign at any moment,” Padilla told reporters.

Congress and Dream Act

Many of those who would qualify for the Dream Act are part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. It was launched by then President Barack Obama after Congress could not pass the Dream Act. DACA allowed more than 830,000 Dreamers to gain temporary U.S. residency, protecting them from deportation and work authorization.

DACA recipients are permitted to legally work in the U.S. Recipients reapply every two years. Previously if their status was in jeopardy, they would receive a warning and would still have a chance to fight it before immigration officers detained them and began efforts to deport them.

DACA is being challenged in a federal court in Texas and the Trump administration is scrutinizing DACA recipients for possible immigration law violations.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin recently issued a statement saying that people “who claim to be recipients of [DACA] are not automatically protected from deportations. DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country.”

DACA recipients can lose status “for a number of reasons, including if they’ve committed a crime,” she said.

Support for Dreamers Act

UnidosUS, the largest Hispanic civil rights group, applauded the proposed legislation by Durbin and Murkowski.

“These young people are American in every way except on paper,” said UnidosUS President and CEO Janet Murguía. “They are students, educators, health care workers and essential community members who enrich and contribute to our nation, and who deserve a pathway to citizenship through this proposed bipartisan legislation."

“After years of inaction, we urge Congress to take this opportunity to advance one of the most broadly supported immigration reforms in the country,” she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

https://www.wlrn.org/immigration/202...ts-deportation

This is old new. it is not going to pass

Its not going to pass though I do feel their 24 years of enthusiasm. Ultimately, it seems nobody is going to get what they want and everyone loses.

But Diaper Don supports the Dreamers!

Their mass deportation has failed so resoundingly that they had to resort to paying people to leave. At only 600,000 of the 1M they needed to remove.

On top of that, their base is already fracturing as the web of lies falls apart. Then as insult to injury, they paid $2 Billion to illegals and this money will go with them overseas to fund businesses its a literal transfer of wealth to illegals disguised as an incentive. When this money could instead be used on citizens its going strait overseas.

Then on top of that there are severe labor shortages across many sectors in jobs citizens absolutely do not want at any price assuming they could even do the job. So to encourage them to work those jobs prices have to increase because all the cheap labor bailed or was deported and then you still fall short because most people don't want to run across roofs in July just short of a fall. People don't want to uproot their families to move to a rural area for seasonal work no matter the price. Then theres the stigma of working these jobs. Then the cherry on top, the lack of talent and skill. People think these jobs are low skill, but they cannot be further from the truth. Do they do their own roofing if they are so smart and talented? Nope.

$170B that could've been spent on things like infrastructure, roads, highways, bridges, are instead used to inflict economic devastation. Instead we are screwed. But the party that is most screwed is the republican party from the economic devastation they have unleashed on the nation.

Hope is Alive!

Questions (and feel free to move it to another thread if you wish):

-How many of you have a pending family immigration petition on YOUR behalf?

-How many of you - DREAMERS in general, not only DACA - have paid for this petition with your own money?

-How many of your parents or siblings have paid for and have pending family petitions (regular, not VAWA or refugee or asylum)? Straight, regular processing payments and information submitted to the government?

I have two petitions pending on my behalf, paid for with our own money, and people obviously pay for DACA/work auth regularly, so none of this is free. There are no freeloaders in immigration when one works and pays for what we request. I am aghast at the level of misinformation fed to the public.

Data from USCIS indicates that there were approx. 336,000 DACA renewals filed in 2023: this is equivalent to roughly $226,000,000 dollars paid in fees.

Likewise, there were approx. 924,400 Petitions for Alien Relative (I-130) filed in 2023: this is the equivalent of $494,554,000 dollars paid in fees.

Ever heard of Somalis?

Duh!

I am clearly referring to regular immigrant benefit applications. Most Somalis were accepted into the U.S. as refugees. Refugees do not pay for their immigration applications, they only have to wait 1 year to become citizens, and are entitled upon arrival and after citizenship to all manner of taxpayer-funded benefits. All asylees and refugees do. If Congress were serious to stop abuses, they would come to the table and overhaul the immigration system in a resonable manner (i.e., matching the 5-yr waiting period for citizenship for refugees and asylees to that of green card applicants).