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No Matter What the Senate Voted, Dreamers are Here to Stay
Posted on Feb 15 2018
Press Release: February 15, 2018 – “We are angered and deeply disappointed by the Senate’s failure to pass legislation protecting Dreamers today,” said John Keller, executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM) this afternoon. “Make no mistake: this is not primarily about the Senate but rather about Trump’s continuing attacks on Dreamers and all immigrants. He precipitated the current crisis by ending DACA.
“Today Trump threatened to veto bills that offered protection to Dreamers, going back on the promises he made just a few months ago to pass a bill of love, take the heat, and sign any bill that Congress sent to him. The Senate, too, failed all Americans when it backed down in the face of his threats and failed to pass and send forward any bill protecting Dreamers.”
The Senate this afternoon failed to reach the minimum of 60 favorable votes for cloture on any of three immigration bills. The only bill that received 60 votes – were 60 senators voting decisively against the White House’s dramatic reductions in legal immigration. Now—after a bare three days of consideration—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says that the Senate will stop even considering any legislation to protect Dreamers.
“McConnell may stop, but we will not stop,” Keller said. “Dreamers and allies will never give up. Nearly ninety percent of Americans want permanent protection for Dreamers – we will all use all of our legal, policy and person-to-person skills to secure a just and lasting protection and future for Minnesota’s 7,000 DACA holders and 15,000 DREAMers.”
In Minnesota alone, Trump’s order devastates more than 7,000 young people – all of whom have or are on track to have a high school diploma, all of whom have had background checks and clean records, all of whom arrived in this country at age 15 or younger.
The state of Minnesota needs Dreamers. We currently are experiencing historic waves of older workers leaving the workforce. According to a December 2017 report from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, “immigration has been and will continue to be a vital source of the workforce that employers need to succeed in the state…. Immigrants have become critical to Minnesota’s economy, providing a rapid stream of new workers in the face of an aging native-born workforce.”
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.
The economic toll of ending DACA is huge, but the human suffering is even greater. Minnesota’s Dreamers grew up here, went to school here, cheered the Twins and Vikings, shoveled snow in Minnesota winters and fished on Minnesota lakes in the summers. Those who have been here the longest have bought homes, married, begun to raise their own children here. This is their home: they have no other.
Side by side with Dreamers, we will continue to fight for their future—a future right here, with a path to citizenship. That is the path and the future that the vast majority of all Americans of all political parties want for Dreamers. They will not give up. We will not give up. Dreamers are here to stay.