Young people who were brought to the country illegally as minors gathered in Hartford on Monday with Senator Richard Blumenthal. They asked Congress to restore the Obama-era program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
President Trump had ordered DACA canceled by this week. Blumenthal says that even though court orders have postponed that deadline, young people like the ones he invited to the press conference live in limbo.
“The DREAMers are here on borrowed time. The sense of uncertainty will continue to plague them, even if they are in schools.”
Blumenthal says Congress should create a legal pathway for tens of thousands of so-called DREAMers living in Connecticut, and hundreds of thousands nationwide.
“The federal threat is no less real that they will simply be sent out of the country to places they have never really known, away from their families, sometimes away from their own children.”
Advocates say Congress has until March 23 to pass a new federal budget and avoid another government shutdown. They want a legal pathway for DACA recipients included in that bill.