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On Aug. 17, six recipients of former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration policy took to the podium at Triune Mercy Center to share their stories and experiences, and advocate for the passage of the Dream Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation introduced last month by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill. The proposed Dream Act would “allow immigrant students who grew up in the United States to earn lawful permanent residence and eventually American citizenship,” according to a press release from Sen. Graham’s office. Requirements include that recipients graduate high school or obtain a GED and “pursue higher education, work lawfully for at least three years, or serve in the military.” Proficiency in English, knowledge of United States history, and a clean criminal record are also among the stipulations. “These young people have lived in America since they were children and built their lives here. … We should not squander these young people’s talents and penalize our own nation,” Sen. Graham said in a statement. “Our legislation would allow these young people — who grew up in the United States — to contribute more fully to the country they love.” Student immigrants and community leaders discussed the impact of former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration policy and advocated for the passage of the bipartisan Dream Act at an Aug. 17 event held at Triune Mercy Center. Photo by Joshua S. Kelly Through DACA, which was announced in June 2012, certain undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors can be granted temporary protection from deportation and work authorization. Among other requirements, DACA recipients must prove they are attending or graduated from high school or college, and that they have no criminal background. The Dream Act is being introduced during a time when the status of DACA remains uncertain. During the 2016 election cycle, then-presidential candidate Donald J. Trump promised to revoke the executive order as one of his first actions as president. Although the policy is still in place, 10 attorneys general, including South Carolina’s Alan Wilson, notified U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in June that they would sue the Trump administration if DACA were not overturned by Sept. 5. “If DACA is revoked, that means all the students who applied for DACA all of a sudden now cannot legally work. In South Carolina, it means they can’t study at state colleges and universities, and they can also actually be deported,” said Will David of Ground Up Greenville. Ground Up Greenville, as well the Hispanic Alliance and Latinos Unidos @ Clemson University, presented Thursday’s event, called Dream On. But while DACA has expanded protections and opportunities for some undocumented immigrants, the policy has its limitations. Most notably, DACA does not provide a path to citizenship. And in South Carolina, DACA recipients are not eligible to receive in-state tuition at colleges and universities, and they are also prohibited from obtaining an array of professional licenses. Immigration reform advocates have challenged these restrictions. “They work so hard in school. They have so much more to contribute to South Carolina,” said Sarah Montero-Buria, community engagement and strategy manager at Hispanic Alliance. “South Carolina needs nurses. South Carolina needs doctors. …. We need these kids, and we need them to work. Not just for social justice reasons but also from an economic perspective.” Keny Murillo, a fifth-year senior at Furman University who hopes to attend medical school and become a doctor, addresses the audience at Triune Mercy Center. Photo by Joshua S. Kelly Two of the event’s speakers, Keny Murillo and Ilse Isidra, addressed how they will be unable to practice medicine in South Carolina under current policy. Murillo, who has lived in the United States since age 9, is a fifth-year senior majoring in biology at Furman University. He hopes to attend medical school and become a doctor. Isidra is a senior in the nursing program at USC Upstate. The Dream Act, Murillo said, “will be the solution that would allow young immigrants like myself that came here to continue our studies, to continue to stay here in this country and contribute further to our community and this nation, which we already do.” Isidra, who arrived in the United States at age 4, said the possibility that she would have to move to another state to practice nursing was “another bump in the road.” “I would like to stay in my community. I would like to be where my roots are from. I’d like to stay in my church and be able to be with my friends,” she said, before asking the audience to consider contacting their elected representatives to express support for the Dream Act. Sarai, who has lived in the United States since age 11, asks the audience at Triune Mercy Center to vocally support Sens. Graham and Durbin’s Dream Act. Photo by Joshua S. Kelly Sarai, a young woman who has lived in the United States since age 11, also urged the audience to vocally support the passage of the Dream Act. “My vision for South Carolina is one where it leads the charge in changing the status quo. It is time for us to seize our day, to make our history and say proudly that even though our past haunts us, this day we fought for a South Carolina that is inclusive, cohesive, and congruent with its values,” she said. “This is not an impossible dream, simply because I know firsthand Southerners like doing the right thing. And I believe Sen. Graham is already doing so by introducing this bill.” The DACA recipients also expressed that although they were not born in the United States, it is where they feel they belong. “Some people think that I would go to school here and go back to Honduras, but the truth is, I don’t see Honduras as my home,” Murillo said. “I see the United States as my home. … This is really all I know. This is really where I want to stay.” Source: https://greenvillejournal.com/2017/08/21/upstate-student-immigrants-urge-legislators-pass-grahams-dream-act/

MIAMI — In the seven months since Thomas Homan was appointed to carry out President Trump's promises to crack down on undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., he has been accused of abusing that power by targeting undocumented immigrants without criminal records. So far, the data seems to back up those accusations, with the percentage of undocumented immigrants without a criminal record arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents increasing each month, from 18% in January to 30% in June. But Homan, a 33-year law enforcement veteran who has worked along the southern border and is now the acting director of ICE, doesn't shy away from those numbers. In fact, he said they're only the start. "You're going to continue to see an increase in that," Homan told USA TODAY during a visit to Miami on Wednesday. Homan has become the public face of Trump's efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, a central theme of his presidential campaign and one of the few areas where he's been able to make wholesale changes without any help from Congress. Under President Obama, ICE agents were directed to focus their arrests on undocumented immigrants who had been convicted of serious crimes, were members of gangs or posed a national security threat. Trump and his Department of Homeland Security have vastly expanded that pool, ordering agents to focus on undocumented immigrants who have only been charged with crimes and allowing them to arrest any undocumented immigrant they happen to encounter. ICE agents are also targeting undocumented immigrants who have been ordered removed from the country by a federal judge — a group that the Obama administration largely left alone. And they're targeting people who have illegally entered the country more than once, which raises their actions to a felony. Using that new metric, Homan said 95% of the 80,000 undocumented immigrants they've arrested so far fall under their newly-defined "priority" categories. "That's pretty close to perfect execution of the policies," Homan said. "The numbers speak for themselves." Homan was visiting Miami with Attorney General Jeff Sessions to publicly thank local leaders who changed their so-called "sanctuary" policies. That is a general term used to describe about 300 cities, counties, states and local law enforcement agencies that limit their cooperation with federal immigration efforts in various ways. Sessions is threatening to withhold millions of dollars in federal law enforcement grants from those cities if they don't change their policies. Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez was the first in the nation to give in to Trump's demands, arguing that his county could not risk the $355 million in federal grants it receives each year. "Thank you for your leadership, sir," Homan said to Gimenez, a Cuban-American immigrant who is the mayor of a county where the majority of people are foreign-born. But other major cities, including Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, have fought back, arguing that the federal government cannot force them to carry out a federal function, and that the Trump administration is asking them to employ practices that violate federal law. Leaders from those cities say it's misguided for Washington to withhold desperately-needed law enforcement dollars from cities like Chicago that are facing surges in violent crime. Homan sees it differently, saying that cities like Chicago are putting his ICE agents at risk because they can't arrest undocumented immigrants in the safe confines of the city's jails and are forced to conduct the dangerous work of arresting them in their homes or on the street. "The way I see it, we're not taking federal funding away from them, the mayor took it away from himself," Homan said, referring to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. During his speech, Sessions frequently cited the surging murder rates in Chicago, which he deems a sanctuary city, with the plummeting murder rates in Miami, which he declared on Wednesday was no longer a sanctuary city. Sessions didn't provide any evidence that undocumented immigrants were contributing to the murders in Chicago, but Homan said that question is irrelevant. "The question is always asked, 'Do illegal immigrants commit more crimes than U.S. citizens?' I don’t know," Homan said. "But what I can say is every crime an illegal alien commits wouldn’t have been committed if he wasn’t here. That’s a preventable crime." Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/08/17/ice-director-says-his-agents-just-getting-started/576702001/

Poll: Wide lead for Maryland Dream Act Washington Post If passed, Maryland would become the first state nationwide to approve a form of the legislation, known as the Dream Act, by a popular vote. Lawmakers in 13 states have adopted similar policies, although none has faced a statewide test at the ballot box. and more » View the full article

Maryland's Dream Act earns broad support Washington Post Maryland's Dream Act earns broad support. Smaller Text Larger Text Text Size; Print · E-mail · Reprints. In this poll: Nearly six in 10 Maryland likely voters support a referendum allowing certain undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition at ... and more » View the full article

Despite the first known deportation of a DACA recipient, President Donald Trump said Friday that so-called Dreamers should “rest easy.” Trump told the Associated Press in an interview that he administration is “not after the Dreamers, we are after the criminals.” He said “that is our policy,” according to the AP. “Dreamer” was originally a term applied in reference to DREAM Act, first introduced in 2001, which would have gradually granted legal status to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States at a young age. Today, it generally refers to young undocumented people registered with the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects registrants from deportation and allows them, among other things, to apply for a Social Security number and a drivers license. Trump has put forward similar assurances before, telling ABC News days after his inauguration, referring to Dreamers: “They shouldn’t be very worried. They are here illegally. They shouldn’t be very worried. I do have a big heart. We’re going to take care of everybody.” Trump told AP that the case of Juan Manuel Montes, whose lawyers say he is the first known DACA recipient to be deported, was “a little different than the Dreamer case,” though AP said he did not specify why. Montes’ lawyers sued the government Tuesday, accusing U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Citizenship and Immigration Services of withholding information related to his deportation despite a FOIA request in mid-March. Montes says he was deported on Feb. 17 without seeing a lawyer or immigration judge after he failed to produce identification for a border patrol agent, having left it in a friend’s car. DHS has said there is no record of that deportation, USA Today reported Tuesday when it broke the story. Both Montes’ lawyers and DHS agree that Montes climbed over a border fence to cross into the United States on the Feb. 19, the Los Angeles Times reported. He was then returned to Mexico. Montes’ lawyers noted that he suffered a traumatic brain injury as a child. The Department of Homeland Security originally incorrectly stated that Montes had not renewed his DACA status through this year. In fact, Montes had, DHS now acknowledges. “There was a time in his life that this individual was a DACA registrant,” DHS Secretary John Kelly said Thursday in reference to Montes, according to the Washington Times. “But he gave that up in his behavior, by his illegal actions. He’s no longer covered by the DACA arrangement.” The judge assigned to the lawsuit is Gonzalo Curiel, who also oversaw the multi-million dollar settlement between former students of the Trump U. wealth seminar courses and Trump in November, and whom Trump smeared as “a Mexican” during the campaign, though he was born in Indiana. Source: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-says-dreamers-should-rest-easy

Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King, a hawkish conservative on immigration, warned President Trump that he could face a lawsuit over the administration's unwillingness to cancel an Obama-era program that provides relief from deportation for certain young, undocumented immigrants. In an interview with The Daily Caller, King drew battle lines when told that Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press that "Dreamers" can "rest easy." Under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), qualifying undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. with their families at a young age can be granted protection from deportation and be eligible for a work permit. They are often referred to as Dreamers. King expressed frustration about Trump's refusal to cancel the program despite repeated campaign promises to do so, arguing that "defenders of the Constitution" may need to sue Trump to block the implementation of the program. "That's what it looks like right now and that's disappointing to me," he told The Caller. "It is impossible to return the respect of the rule of law in regards with immigration [with DACA on the books]." Trump's conservative base has long shared frustration over his apparent leniency to Dreamers — applications are still being processed as part of the program. There have been several reports of DACA recipients being detained by immigration agents, including news this week that a Dreamer had been deported. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has said that DACA recipients are not guaranteed protection from deportation, but that they are not a priority. Past legal action against DACA has had mixed results. While a deadlocked Supreme Court blocked the expansion of the program to allow parents of these undocumented immigrants protections, court challenges to the original DACA policy were unsuccessful. Source: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/329992-gop-rep-steve-king-warns-trump-on-daca

Illegals enrolled in the President Barack Obama’s “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” DACA program can “rest easy,” Trump said, because “this is a case of heart.” Federal enforcement agencies are “not [going] after the ‘dreamers,’ we are after the criminals,” he said, using the Democrats’ ‘dreamer’ euphemism for young illegal immigrants. “That is our policy,” he added. The Friday comments confirm Trump’s reversal of his 2016 campaign promise to stop the DACA quasi-amnesty created by Obama during his 2012 reelection campaign. He created the program in 2012 by telling his immigration enforcement officers to provide young illegals with free work permits instead of repatriation orders. The program has allowed at least 770,000 illegal immigrants to find jobs in major U.S. cities, even though tens of millions of Americans outside the cities are unemployed or have given up trying to find work. Since his inauguration, Trump’s deputies at the Department of Homeland Security have awarded new work permits to illegals who claim they arrived before age 16, despite Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” slogan. Trump’s support for the DACA program is one of his biggest “flip-flops,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “During the campaign, now-President Trump had said he was going to end that on day one because it’s an unconstitutional action by the president,” Krikorian told Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Friday. Krikorian continued: And of course he’s right, it’s illegal. And they’ve done nothing to it. They’ve done absolutely nothing.” Trump’s post-inauguration turnabout on DACA means that pro-American reformers who want to reduce the impact of illegal-alien workers in the job market will need to bring a lawsuit arguing that the federal government illegally awarded work permits to illegal immigrants, say advocates. Trump’s refusal to reverse or even stop the DACA program is also a bad sign for future immigration reforms, says Krikorian. That’s because he could stop the program and then use the resulting public outcry to pressure Democrats to establish pro-Americans immigration policies. Those policies could include a mandatory requirement that employers check that job applicants are legal residents in the United States. In August 2016, Obama’s chief economist said the federal is imposing the economic pain of five simultaneous recessions on less-educated Americans, thereby pushing millions of working-age men off jobs, out of the workforce, and into poverty. Roughly 10 percent of American “prime age” men, or 7 million men aged 25 to 54, have dropped out of the nation’s workforce of 150 million. They are not trying to get jobs, and are not participating in the nation’s labor force. “This [dropout] is caused by policies and institutions, not by technology,” admitted Jason Furman, an economist who chaired the president’s Council of Economic Advisors. “We shouldn’t accept it as inevitable,” he told a Brookings Institute expert, Dave Wessel on August 10. The primary reason for reduced employment is that “the amount [of money] that employers would want to hire them for some reason has gone down,” he said. In February, Trump told that the AP that “DACA is a very, very difficult subject for me … It’s one of the most difficult subjects I have because you have these incredible kids.” Source: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/21/trump-says-daca-illegals-can-rest-easy/

AUSTIN, Texas ― President Donald Trump offered words of reassurance to Dreamers on Friday, telling the Associated Press that he didn’t intend to deport the undocumented youths who qualify to remain in the country. Trump said his administration is “not after the Dreamers, we are after the criminals,” according to AP, adding that undocumented youths with permission to work legally should “rest easy.” But even as he pledged that Dreamers and law-abiding immigrants without papers should stop worrying, data released Friday by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse undermined his claims. TRAC’s preliminary review of court records under Trump’s first two months in office showed that the number of people detained while their deportation cases proceed more than doubled, from 27 percent of the total to 61 percent. Nearly 26,000 people were served with Notices to Appear in immigration court ― the first step in deportation cases ― from Trump’s inauguration in late January through March. That figure amounts to roughly the same pace as in the final months of the Obama administration. More info/source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-says-dreamers-shouldnt-worry-statistics-say-otherwise_us_58fa76a9e4b06b9cb916faaa

DHS Approves 171 DACA Applicants After Judge Restores Program DocumentedView the full article

DHS Approves 171 DACA Applicants After Judge Restores Program Documented NYView the full article

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A judge on Thursday morning ordered the release of a Portland man being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Emmanuel Ayala Frutos, 21, has been held at the Tacoma detention center since March 26 when he was picked up in his home in North Portland. The The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon says ICE did not have a warrant for his arrest. The judge ordered his release on a $10,000 bond and subject to conditions. He should be released later Thursday once the bond is posted, his lawyer tells KOIN 6 News. Frutos in February entered a plea in Clark County for possessing and showing a butterfly knife in November. The judge said he was not a danger to the community. He has since completed an anger management program, attended all of his court dates and required meetings. He was hospitalized twice in 2016 for mental illnesses and was injured in January after he struck by a car while riding his skateboard. Frutos arrived in the United States at the age of six from Michoacan, Mexico. He has lived in the Portland area since 2002 and attended Sitton Elementary School, George Middle School, and Roosevelt High School. He received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2013. He was in the process of renewing his DACA, which had expired two weeks earlier. Source: http://koin.com/2017/04/13/portland-dreamer-can-be-released-on-bond/

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/11/politics/trump-sanctuary-city-detainer/index.html

Letter: Maryland Dream Act runs counter to federal law Baltimore Sun What seems to be missing from Calvin Ball's piece Oct. 11 column on the Dream Act, and also seems to be missing from the discussion of this act overall, is the fact that the Maryland Dream Act directly contradicts the legal intent of an already ... and more » View the full article

Western Nevada College student plans rally Friday for Dream Act Nevada Appeal The point was driven home to him last year when a group of young people visited Western Nevada Col lege's Latino Student Club, of which Perez served as president, to talk about the Dream Act. “You couldn't even tell they were illegal immigrants,” Perez ... View the full article

Letter: More Republicans? Naples Daily News taxing companies which ship jobs overseas; political ad disclosure; the Small Business Jobs Act; the Dream Act; the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell; benefits for homeless veterans; health care for 9/11 first responders; oil spill liability; immigration ... View the full article

Protestors in Support of DREAM Act Along Edgewood Drive in Lakeland The Ledger ... Drive in Lakeland. Protesters march against Connie Mack IV for voting against the DREAM (Development Relief and Education of Alien Minors) Act in 2010 along Edgewood Drive in Lakeland on Tuesday. SCOTT WHEELER | THE LEDGER. THE LEDGER ... and more » View the full article

Higher Ed on the Ballot Inside Higher Ed In the realm of college access, the most widely watched measure is Maryland's DREAM Act referendum, which would allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at Maryland community colleges and universities provided they meet a strict set of ... View the full article

Washington Times Not backing down, Romney clarifies debate remarks on illegals Washington Times Still, it's a long way from the estimated 1.7 million illegal immigrants that could earn tentative legal status under President Obama's new nondeportation policy or under the Dream Act — legislation that would have granted a full path to citizenship ... Romney's Newfound Moderation on Immigration Threatens DemocratsNational Journal Gutierrez, Velazquez and Becerra Blast Romney on ImmigrationPolitic365 Who Won the Debate? Undocumented Youth Respond to DebateHispanically Speaking News ThinkProgress -Huffington Post -ABC News all 74 news articles » View the full article

Immigration Blog (blog) No Limiting Principle No Limiting Principle Immigration Blog (blog) Obama continued to spread the falsehood that the Republicans stopped the belated Democratic push for the DREAM Act during the 2010 lame-duck session. It's true that Republicans launched a filibuster, and the cloture vote for DREAM failed by five votes ... About the issue: ImmigrationWashington Post all 86 news articles » View the full article

The Guardian For candidates, it's either “self-deport” or adopt the immigration Dream Act San Antonio Express Romney, who has suggested illegal immigrants should “self deport” and has vowed to veto the Dream Act, took on Obama for not introducing reforms in the last four years, criticism that resonated with Romney supporters. “(Obama) had two years, Democrats ... Obama: Romney Said 'I Would Veto the Dream Act'ABC News After Debate, Team Obama Blames Republicans For Failure To Pass ...TPM Ronald Reagan and Romney`s Immigration Stance in Last Night`s Presidential ...Jornal.us News Agency Fox News -National Journal -Hispanically Speaking News all 22,607 news articles » View the full article

The Jewish Journal of Greater L.A. (blog) Sherman-Berman fracas The Jewish Journal of Greater L.A. (blog) Less clear is how two members of the same party could have such divergent views of what would seem to be a straightforward matter that they were arguing over — whether Berman wrote the immigration legislation that has become known as the DREAM Act. Berman airs ad showing Sherman grabbing himJewish Telegraphic Agency (blog) Berman ad calls Sherman 'unhinged'The Hill (blog) all 10 news articles » View the full article

Latina Lista: The Smart News Source CEO Drops $1 Million for Undocumented Immigrant College Scholarships ... Fox News The scholarship announcement comes during a growing national debate over whether or not undocumented immigrants should be allowed to attend college, through legislative acts like the DREAM Act, and whether they should be allowed to pay in-state ... No Limiting PrincipleNational Review Online (blog) Romney's Newfound Moderation on Immigration Threatens DemocratsNational Journal Gutierrez, Velazquez and Becerra Blast Romney on ImmigrationPolitic365 ThinkProgress -Washington Times -Politico (blog) all 67 news articles » View the full article

The Guardian Top Latino Voter Issues Raised At The Second Presidential Debate Huffington Post Also during the GOP primary, Romney said he'd veto the DREAM Act. Then, moving toward the general election, he said at a conference of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials that he supported a military-only DREAM Act. At Tuesday's debate ... The Associated Press,San Francisco Chronicle all 71 news articles » View the full article

DREAM Act Support The Ledger The protesters want Mack to change his anti-immigrant stance if he wants to win the Florida Latino vote. The DREAM Act was first proposed in 2001 but has languished in Congress as lawmakers argue over it. The bill would provide permanent residency to ... View the full article

TPM After Debate, Team Obama Blames Republicans For Failure To Pass ... TPM When it comes to immigration, Mitt Romney holds a lot of positions — from self-deportation to opposing the DREAM Act — that are unpopular with Latino voters. But he does have one effective talking point: President Obama promised to pass immigration ... Poll: NM Hispanics Motivated by Economy, Not ImmigrationKUNM Democrat and Republican Latinos gearing up for tonight's debateNBC Latino all 40 news articles » View the full article