by James Parks, May 11, 2011
Our elected leaders should act quickly to protect the interests of our nation’s youth and working people by enacting the DREAM Act and by bringing relief to these young people who continue to be jailed and deported, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said.
Trumka commended President Obama for pushing for the DREAM Act and called on the White House to grant deferred action and other measures to DREAM Act-eligible youth—”so we can stop deporting our nation’s future doctors, engineers and teachers.”
As DREAMer Gaby Pacheco says:
We know President Obama supports immigration reform. We know he supports the DREAM Act. That’s not in question. We need him to use his executive power to stop deportations of youths eligible for the DREAM Act, keeping families together until Congress is able to put its differences aside and acknowledge that we are part of the future of our great country.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) today introduced the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would give conditional legal status and eventual citizenship to undocumented students who graduate from U.S. high schools, are of good moral character, arrived in the United States as minors and have been in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill’s enactment.
“With the DREAM Act, these college educated workers or military veterans will be given the opportunity to contribute to our nation’s economy and local communities instead of being thrown out of them,” Trumka said in a statement.
We urge Republicans in Congress to put aside their partisan agenda, recognize the plight of these young Americans and take the moral path for our country and for our economy.
Read Trumka’s full statement here.
The House passed the DREAM Act last December, but Republicans sidelined the bill in the Senate.
