WASHINGTON – Six years ago, Steve Li heard a loud knock at the front door – the beginning of an event that shattered his family.
Immigration officials rushed in, arrested him and his parents, and eventually deported the parents to China. A teenager at the time, he was detained temporarily but not deported.
“I had to spend the last six years – my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas – without my family,” Li said.
Li joined members of Congress, fellow immigrants and Asian and Pacific Islander rights groups outside the Capitol on Wednesday to push for passage of the DREAM — Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors — Act to protect young, undocumented immigrants from being deported to their home countries.
The DREAM Act has been around for years without getting approval in Congress. It would provide green cards to undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children, with a path to permanent resident status and possibly citizenship.
President Donald Trump opted to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order that former President Barack Obama signed in 2012 so its provisions will end in March. Obama issued the order as a way to provide some of the DREAM Act protections. It allows young undocumented immigrants to receive two-year temporary permits to stay in the U.S., work and go to school.
“After DACA ends in March,” Li said, “More and more families will be torn apart.”
In the last few weeks, a number of GOP and Democratic lawmakers have called for a DACA solution by the end of the year, and many have placed the onus for action on the legislation on House Speaker Paul Ryan.
“It’s now up to Speaker Ryan to put this bill on the floor,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., said Wednesday at the Capitol rally. “Set partisanship aside and stand with DREAMers.”
Ryan, who originally wanted to tack DACA legislation to an end-of-year spending package, recently said it would instead be treated as a separate bill.
“President Trump’s cruel decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has left the lives of nearly 800,000 dreamers in limbo, this includes the over 130,000 Asian and Pacific Islander DREAMers across the nation who are forced to live with increasing uncertainty,” said Democratic Rep. Judy Chu of California, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
Li said if Congress doesn’t act, thousands of others will experience what he has known.
“They won’t be able to spend the holidays with their families, and they really live in fear every time they spend the holidays with their families, thinking that it might be the last,” he said.