In September the Trump administration announced it was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which had allowed hundreds of thousands of young immigrants to work or go to school without fear of being deported. As 2017 draws to a close, Congress is facing a stark choice: will they pass legislation to protect Dreamers, or will they vote to fund Dreamers’ deportations?
In the December 15 episode of “The Progressive Happy Hour,” hosts Christin “Cici” Battle and Drew Courtney sit down with Jonathan Jayes-Green, national coordinator and co-founder of the UndocuBlack Network, to get up to speed on the fight for Congress to protect Dreamers and pass a clean DREAM Act.
“I don’t think people generally understand what being undocumented means in this country,” Jonathan told the hosts. “Every day trying to go to school, work, see your families, try to have fun—all of these things while having this looming reminder of your undocumented status. This looming reminder that any second you could be taken away, you could be deported, your family could be in danger. It has a huge physical and emotional toll on our bodies and ourselves and our ability to just live freely in this country. At the end of the day, passing the solution—the DREAM Act—for our communities means not having that fear of deportation, but really just being allowed to live. I just want to live and thrive in this country that I call home.”
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