It’s time to fix DACA and help Dreamers

The Denver Post recently profiled four Coloradans whose futures are being held hostage by an uncompromising Congress and a morally compromised president.

These courageous Dreamers are only asking for the ability to work and go to school in the U.S. without the fear of deportation, but resoundingly the answer from those in charge of our country has been that providing legal status to children who were brought to this country illegally is too difficult.

It’s too difficult to provide temporary legal status to teachers like Tania Chairez and Alejandro Fuentes, who are paying taxes and supporting students in Denver Public Schools.

It’s too difficult to provide relief from fears of deportation for an aspiring film maker like Laura Peniche, 34, who is terrified she will have to leave her three children in America.

It’s too difficult to provide a path to citizenship for someone like Angel Oaxaca-Rivas who graduated from Regis University and is working in a food truck.

And it’s too difficult to support someone like Jin Park who is the first Dreamer to receive a Rhodes scholarship to attend Oxford University.

These immigrants were brought to America by their parents for the possibility of a better life and they have seized upon the opportunity.

We must find a way to ease the threat that is looming over them — the threat that they might lose the only home they know.

A federal appeals court last month blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to revoke Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program put in place by President Barack Obama to grant legal status to those who arrived in America as children illegally.

It’s likely the U.S. Supreme Court will have the final say whether Trump’s decision to repeal DACA can stand.

But instead of forcing people like Chairez, Fuentes, Peniche and Park to wait in limbo, Congress must address the issue of legal status for 700,000 DACA recipients and hundreds of thousands of other childhood arrivals.

Now that Democrats have taken the House they have the opportunity to lead the way on this issue by passing a clean DACA bill – one that isn’t tied to any other issue.

Democrats should be willing to compromise with Republicans in the Senate on how long and hard the path to citizenship will be and who will qualify for the program.

Likely Republicans will refuse to pass a clean bill, instead demanding that it must be tied to border security. That’d be a fine outcome as well.

But Trump is asking for $5 billion to build his wall. That’s an insane ask for a construction project that we don’t think would be effective at significantly reducing the level of illegal immigration.

It’s time to make it so a large portion of our immigrant community can stop living in fear of deportation. Congress must act and Democrats should lead the way. — The Denver Post, Digital

First Media

Now that Democrats have taken the House they have the opportunity to lead the way on this issue by passing a clean DACA bill – one that isn’t tied to any other issue. Democrats should be willing to compromise with Republicans in the Senate on how long and hard the path to citizenship will be and who will qualify for the program.