Sixty local residents rallied in steady rain at the Oneida Square Roundabout in Utica on Tuesday evening to protest the Trump administration’s decision to end the 2012 program that deferred deportations for nearly a million young people who were brought to the U.S. as children. The rally, which was sponsored by the Central New York Citizen Action and Indivisible Mohawk Valley, called on Representative Tenney and Congress to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program and enact immediate legislation to protect those covered by the program. Protestors carried signs like “Protect Dreamers and Immigrants,” “Immigrant Rights are Human Rights,” and “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
The Justice Department announced on Tuesday it is ending DACA, the Obama-era program that allowed heavily vetted undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S.as children before 2007 to remain in the U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Trump administration will stop considering new applications for legal status dated after Tuesday, but will allow any DACA recipients with a permit set to expire before March 5, 2018 the opportunity to apply for a two-year renewal if they apply by October 5, 2017. In rescinding DACA, the Justice Department has given Congress a six-month window to address the problem of DREAMers and potentially pass a legislative solution. Congress has been unwilling and unable to pass immigration reform that addresses this human tragedy for the past 14 years. The lives of nearly 1 million young people, including 50,000 New Yorkers, now hang in the balance, the stability, protection from deportation, and opportunities for gainful employment and education afforded by DAC, being torn away.
The rally, sponsored by Central New York Citizen Action and Indivisible Mohawk Valley, called on local citizens to contact their members of Congress to defend the DACA program and pass a Dream Act immediately and without compromise.