UMASS BIGS APPEAL FOR DREAMERS

Meehan, chancellors urge Congress to act

UMass President Martin J. Meehan and the chancellors of the university’s five campuses are calling on Congress to find a permanent solution to protect the nation’s nearly 800,000 Dreamer students and urging the Bay State’s congressional delegation to take “immediate action.”

“On behalf of the fivecampus, 75,000-student University of Massachusetts system, we call on Congress to pass bipartisan legislation that protects the ‘Dreamers’ so that they may remain in the United States without fear of deportation,” the UMass leaders said in a joint statement. “DACA has allowed ‘Dreamers’ to emerge from the shadows to achieve their life goals, including the pursuit of higher education.”

The UMass leadership also sent a letter to the state’s congressional delegation demanding action after the Trump administration terminated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, which protects hundreds of thousands of people who arrived in the United States as undocumented immigrant children.

The push from the higher ed leaders comes as the Trump administration is reportedly seeking $18 billion over the next decade to build barriers along the southwest border and Congress works to reach a deal on restoring DACA protections.

“These hardworking young people have made wide-ranging contributions to our campuses. Without a permanent legislative solution, roughly 800,000 DACA recipients are threatened with a return to the shadows, loss of access to legal employment and education, and the dread of possible deportation,” the statement read. “We urge Congress to quickly act on bipartisan legislation to protect the ‘Dreamers’ and their contributions to academic institutions and to society as a whole.”