AR Congressman to DACA Recipients: 'I'm not someone who's trying to kick out Dreamers

jaylove16 · 10-21-2017, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Top Arkansas leaders came together under one roof at the Clinton Library Friday for the Delta Caucus.

DACA recipients, undocumented immigrants whose parents brought them illegally to the U.S. as children, used that to their advantage.

As the program hangs in limbo, they claim the Arkansas congressional delegation has ignored their calls so they confronted the only one present in Little Rock.

The small group chanted, "Congressmen, we see you! Congressmen, where are you!," outside the library as U.S. Congressman Rick Crawford spoke inside about trade with Cuba and other job opportunities in the state.

The chants of the DACA recipients arguably worked as Congressman Crawford made himself known as he left out of the library's main entrance. A 19-year-old Dreamer wouldn't let him get away.

"I actually would like for you to maybe do something about it because I'm a 4.0 bio, pre-med student on a full ride at Philander Smith College," Maria Meneses told the congressman when she caught up with him.

Meneses couldn't hold back tears as she explained to Crawford her dreams of going into the Navy and becoming a doctor.

"It's okay," Crawford said as he comforted her. "Hey, listen. Let me tell you something about the Navy thing. That's still an opportunity for you, okay? So I would continue to pursue that. That's a pathway to citizenship."

However, Meneses said she already tried to join and was turned away.

"If you call my office, I'll help you," Crawford said. "If they still tell us no, at least it won't be because we haven't tried."

"But what about the others?," Meneses asked.

"I understand, I understand," Crawford responded. "What I'm saying is I'm sympathetic to your position and I recognize that. I'm not someone who's trying to kick out Dreamers or anything like that."

http://www.arkansasmatters.com/news/...mers/841549833

He is a republican. Good for this girl for confronting him! On his website he opposes DACA and he released a statement when it was terminated indicating he doesn’t care about us being deported.

Quote:

Congressman Rick Crawford (AR-1) issued the following statement following the Trump administration's announcement to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program:

“The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was created by an unconstitutional executive action, and President Trump correctly decided to rescind the program in favor of a more comprehensive approach to immigration reform. While it isn’t fair that many young people were brought here through no fault of their own, granting illegal immigrants amnesty every few years also isn’t fair to the families who do immigrate legally. Any immigration reform policy Congress takes up must first strengthen border security and then address the illegal immigrants already here, to do otherwise would be treating a symptom instead of the root problem.”

Putting faces to our plight is very important. Maybe this encounter would have an effect on him ? Let’s hope so .

Swim19 · 10-21-2017, 08:40 AM

The face to face meeting with DREAMers definitely helps! It's much harder to say you don't support DREAMers to their face.

Also it's so disingenuous for Republicans to say "I don't want to kick you out, but I want to take away your right to work, drive a car, travel, and live your life without worry of deportation".

2MoreYears · 10-21-2017, 10:02 AM

Gotta love the research. Thanks for posting and most importantly for highlighting.

versailles · 10-22-2017, 12:57 AM

really, what these hawks theoretically should have in common is wanting less foreigners overall.
we can accomplish that with some kind of RAISE + DA compromise.
we are already assimilated, what more do you want.

Demise · 10-22-2017, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by versailles

really, what these hawks theoretically should have in common is wanting less foreigners overall.
we can accomplish that with some kind of RAISE + DA compromise.
we are already assimilated, what more do you want.

Raise act basically gets rid of everything except IR and F2A categories, and makes everything draw out of the F2A cap.

That's not an acceptable tradeoff.

versailles · 10-23-2017, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demise

Raise act basically gets rid of everything except IR and F2A categories, and makes everything draw out of the F2A cap.

That's not an acceptable tradeoff.

what is then?

libertarian1776 · 10-23-2017, 10:21 PM

Dream Act and Robust Border Security Bill (no buffing up interior enforcement.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by versailles

what is then?

versailles · 10-23-2017, 11:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by libertarian1776

Dream Act and Robust Border Security Bill (no buffing up interior enforcement.)

if they do have interior enforcement it'd make it easier for CIR later on.
hawks want action right now, not after a bill is passed. they know how that went last time(see reagan)
even ann coulter of all people has said she's open to talk about CIR, but only after increased enforcement.
there's literally 500k deportation orders backed up, a majority of which are criminals. are we just gonna keep ignoring that.

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AR Congressman to DACA Recipients: 'I'm not someone who's trying to kick out Dreamers