News > Immigration In The United States
DACA ending, battle for DREAMers moves to Congress
Posted on Sep 08 2017
On September 5, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced an end to DACA, turning away more than 800,000 young immigrants. Besides the blow to Minnesota and the United States, ending DACA threatens to send young people back to countries they barely know, uprooting them from families, children and the communities in which they grew up.
In Minnesota alone, Trump’s order devastates more than 6,200 young people – all of whom have or will have a high school diploma, are in or graduated from college, or are working in jobs that pay them better because they have DACA. All of them arrived in this country at age 15 or younger and consider Minnesota their home. ILCM and NavigateMN programs have worked together to support and assist thousands of DACA applicants between the ages of 15 and 35 from every Congressional District and from dozens of countries.
The state of Minnesota is currently experiencing historic waves of older workers leaving the workforce. According to the Humphrey Institute and Greater MSP’s January 23, 2017 report, Minnesota needs to expand the rate of immigration to Minnesota four and one-half times to maintain our current economic standard of living.
Minnesotans with DACA pay $15 million in state and local taxes. According to the Center for American Progress, ending DACA would cost Minnesota more than $367 million in annual GDP losses. Nationally, the loss of DACA would cost the country $460 billion over the next decade. Even the conservative CATO institute supports continuing DACA and warns of a loss of almost $350 billion over the next decade if DACA is ended.
Americans want these young Dreamers to stay. National polls of registered voters show 78 percent of voters support giving DREAMers a chance to stay permanently, including 73 percent of Trump voters. Businesses in Minnesota and nationally also support permanent protection for DREAMers including Best Buy, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, General Motors, Google, Starbucks and Visa among many others.
The Trump administration’s abolition of DACA will begin taking away status from DACA recipients as soon as early March 2018, making them vulnerable to deportation. Congress has an opportunity to reverse this decision, and offer permanent protection to the DREAMers. DREAM Act bills with bipartisan sponsorship have been introduced in both the House and Senate.
Minnesota’s Congressional delegation can lead the way by showing bipartisan unity in demonstrating leadership to pass permanent protection for our DREAMers. The delegation is split, mostly along partisan lines – Supporting DACA and Dreamers, opposing Trump decision: DFL Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, DFL Congressmembers Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, Tim Walz, Collin Peterson and Rick Nolan all support DACA and Dreamers. Republican Congressmenbers Tom Emmer and Jason Lewis support the administration’s action to abolish DACA. Republican Congressman Erik Paulsen falls somewhere in the middle, saying he supports DREAMers, but not clearly supporting the DREAM Act.
We urge every person, business, faith community, school, and organization who cares about these young people – and who cares about what they bring to our state and nation – to contact your Congressional representatives and demand that they pass the Dream Act before then, and give these young people permanent protection and a path to citizenship.