Protesters gather on the Senate steps of the U.S. Capitol in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, in Washington, Dec. 6, 2017.AL DRAGO/The Globe and Mail
Young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children are mounting a major campaign to push lawmakers to resolve their status by the end of the year as each day brings them closer to the risk of deportation.
Democrats and a number of Republicans agree that a solution must be found for the immigrants sometimes referred to as "Dreamers," but they diverge on questions of timing. Republicans want to postpone consideration of the issue until early next year but immigration activists fear delays will turn into inaction.
Now Democrats have a rare moment of leverage this week as Congress scrambles to assemble a crucial spending bill to fund the U.S. government. To pass, the bill will require bipartisan support in the Senate. Some Democrats in the chamber have pledged to reject the bill unless it includes a fix for the young immigrants. But the party's leadership now appears to be backing away from such rhetoric.
With just days remaining before lawmakers return home for the holidays, young undocumented immigrants and their allies are keeping up the pressure. In recent weeks, they have conducted hunger strikes, mounted demonstrations and embraced civil disobedience.
Piash Ahamed, who came to the United States from Bangladesh at the age of 10, was arrested for the first time in his life earlier this month during a peaceful protest at the U.S. Capitol. "It was kind of traumatic, yet liberating at the same time," said Mr. Ahamed, 27. "I was putting my body and my soul in line for something I believe in."
Every day the situation of people like Mr. Ahamed grows more urgent: in September, President Donald Trump scrapped the Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which allows 700,000 such immigrants to work legally and avoid deportation.
Thousands of existing DACA recipients have already lost such protections and in early March, their number will begin to expand dramatically. About 1,000 people a day will lose their status, putting them at risk of removal from the country they call home unless legislators take action.
Business executives, religious leaders and university presidents have all urged lawmakers to pass a version of the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), the legislation that gave the undocumented immigrants their "Dreamer" label and aims to legalize their status.
The cause has attracted broad and bipartisan sympathy: last week, Tim Cook, the chief executive officer of Apple and a supporter of liberal causes, and Charles Koch, the chairman of Koch Industries and an avowed conservative, co-authored an opinion piece in The Washington Post calling for a permanent solution for Dreamers. Behind closed doors, a small group of senators from both parties is attempting to hash out a legislative fix. On Dec. 12, Charles Schumer, the most senior Democrat in the Senate, said that negotiations with Republicans were under way "to provide a significant investment in border security in exchange for DACA."
Some Democrats in the Senate, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, have promised to withhold their support for a year-end spending package if it does not include a permanent solution for DACA recipients. In order to force the issue, however, Democrats would need to vote as a bloc and risk shutting down the government. And that is a gamble Mr. Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi now seem unwilling to take.
A fix for Dreamers will be only one item in a jam-packed final week of legislation before Congress heads home for the holidays. Republicans are aiming to pass both their tax-cut legislation and a bill to fund the government by Dec. 22. To meet a procedural hurdle and pass the latter, they will need 60 votes in the Senate, which means winning over at least eight Democrats.
"The real political junkies just love this – it's about a bunch of pieces and how they fit together," said Chris Lu, a former Obama administration official who is now a senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. The Democratic base is "going to be really pushing Democrats to stand strong."
A group of progressive and immigration activists is already warning Democrats in Congress that they will face the ire of some of their voters if they fail to use their current leverage to pass the Dream Act. "If Congress goes home for Christmas but leaves Dreamers out in the cold, the grassroots uprising will be scorching enough to boil snow," said Ben Wikler, Washington director at MoveOn.org, in a statement last week.
Proponents of the Dream Act have been disappointed before: in 2007, the bill was included in a broader comprehensive immigration reform package that failed to pass; in 2010, the House approved the bill but the Senate declined to bring the legislation for a vote. In response to those failures, the Obama administration used executive authority to institute the DACA program in 2012.
For people such as Mr. Ahamed, the past five years have been transformative. He has his own car and works at a Tex-Mex restaurant while studying political science at a community college. But his plans for the future evaporated in September with Mr. Trump's announcement cancelling DACA. His work permit expires in October of next year.
But he has vowed not to go back into the shadows. If Congress fails to do something by the end of the year, "the fight will ramp up even more," said Mr. Ahamed. And he is already envisioning what could happen early next year: a march on Washington by the hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients and their families.