Chamber president: Legalize ‘dreamers’
A prominent Arizona business leader wants Congress to pass legislation offering permanent legal status to nearly 800,000 young immigrants nationally, including some 30,000 in Arizona.
The immigrants granted work permits through the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will soon be tossed out of the workforce when the program ends.
Glenn Hamer, president and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said DACA recipients are “by and large productive members of our workforce” and warned that the economy will suffer if they are no longer allowed to work.
Hamer also “strongly” rejected Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ claim that DACA denies jobs to Americans by giving them to people in the country illegally. Sessions announced President Donald Trump’s decision to end DACA.
Hamer said DACA recipients are already contributing to the economy, learning new skills in school or serving in the military, and that removing them from the workforce would only hurt the economy.
“It would be like in football taking points off the board,” Hamer said. “On the economic front, it’s very clear that having these productive individuals
fully engaged in our workforce is a big win for our country.”
Hamer made his remarks in a conference call with the media. He was joined by business and industry leaders from three other states who also urged Congress to take action: Mary Bontrager, executive vice president of Talent Development at Greater Des Moines Partnership in Iowa; Mike Gempler, executive director of Washington state Growers’ League; and Jason Mathis, executive vice president of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce.
The call was organized by the New American Economy, an advocacy group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and made up of 500 Republican, Democratic and independent mayors and business leaders that promotes pro-immigration legislation.
After Texas and several other states threatened to file a lawsuit challenging the DACA program, the Trump administration announced on Sept. 5 that the program was being rescinded.
The Trump administration stopped accepting new applications for the program on Sept. 5 and will begin phasing out the program on March 5, giving Congress a six-month time table to pass legislation before current permits will begin to expire, putting current DACA recipients in jeopardy of deportation and taking away their ability to work legally in the U.S.
The Trump administration argued that in creating the program through executive action, the Obama administration circumvented Congress.
Trump had promised to end the DACA program while campaigning for president, but held off after taking office while expressing sympathy for socalled “dreamers.”
President Barack Obama created the program in June 2012 to give immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children the chance to receive protection from deportation and work permits in exchange for registering with the government.
On Monday, California filed a lawsuit alleging that rescinding the DACA program is unconstitutional, according to the Los Angeles Times. That lawsuit came after 15 other states lead by New York and Washington filed a similar lawsuit.
Hamer said the Arizona business community — including local chambers of commerce, major trade associations, and business leadership groups — is united “in our desire to see Congress act and see Congress act swiftly to fix this issue and ideally this calendar year.”