The Senate Fails to Provide a Solution For Undocumented Youth
- Contact
Washington, D.C. — The Senate ended today by failing to pass a bill to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented youth. Among the amendments up for a vote was a bill heavily supported by the Trump administration, a white nativist wish list which failed miserably on the floor.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice, an affiliation of five civil rights organizations, releases the following statement:
“After 163 days of living in limbo, Congress is forcing immigrant youth to wait longer still while politicians take a week-long holiday instead of staying in town to find a solution.
There is now fewer than three weeks left before the March 5th deadline that the Trump administration manufactured to create this crisis. It is unconscionable that Congress is allowing the deadline for protections of immigrant youth – including 130,000 Asian Americans – to inch closer and closer when they should have been working on a bipartisan bill since the September announcement to end the DACA program.
The silver lining from today is that Senators overwhelmingly rejected the White House proposal by a vote of 39-60 that tried to terminate our family immigration system and build a border wall in exchange for legalizing undocumented youth. Asian Americans Advancing Justice urges the President to make good on his promise to undocumented youth and support a clean DREAM Act. The clear rejection of the administration’s proposal should demonstrate that the administration’s attempt to give ultimatums is a failing proposition.
The best way to resolve this crisis is to pass the DREAM Act, the bipartisan legislation that has been the only bill to maintain its focus on undocumented youth and not hold them hostage to unrealistic and unnecessary nativist ideas. We are angered by the lack of urgency by Congressional members who are supposed to be working for the American people.
Congress needs to get back to work on a clean DREAM Act, a measure supported by more than 8 out of 10 Americans.”