December 13 – U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján is pressuring President Joe Biden to protect DACA recipients in the final days of his presidential term, while the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops urges incoming President-elect Donald Trump urged to reconsider his promise of massive reforms. deportations.
“I’m very concerned about what I’ve heard from the new president, and even more so, about some of the people he’s brought around who have said they’re going to target people across the country who are our Dreamers, who DACA,” Luján told the Journal.
The New Mexico Democrat sent Biden, along with his colleagues from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Alex Padilla of California, sent a letter to Biden in the first week of December asking him to protect DACA recipients by streamlining DACA reauthorizations and extending temporary protected rights. Status for Ecuador, Nicaragua and El Salvador. The trio reiterated their call at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday.
The decade-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program allows people who came to the U.S. as children to apply for a two-year deferred removal and be allowed to work. The application can be extended.
The Temporary Protected Status program was created in the 1990s to help people fleeing persecution and violence stay legally in the U.S.
The senators have not yet heard from Biden on whether his administration will take action, Luján said.
“I pray that President Biden does the right thing in his final days. And I am also hopeful and praying that under President Trump, Dreamers will also be respected, and that there will be policies that we as Democrats can all work on together. and Republicans,” he said.
If mass deportations occur, as Trump promised during his presidential campaign, Luján is concerned that more families will be separated.
“We will see American families torn apart, American citizens separated from their families, No. 1, who is not American,” Luján said. “No. 2: We would see a very negative impact on the U.S. economy and in New Mexico if the Trump administration were indeed to do this.”
Instead of mass deportations, Luján would like to see Congress pursue comprehensive immigration reform and possibly invest in border patrol and immigration courts.
In the first week of December, the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops also called on Trump to reconsider mass deportations.
They believe that “a policy of mass deportation will not fix the broken immigration system, but rather create chaos, separation of families and traumatization of children.”
“While removing those who harm us is necessary, deporting immigrants who have built equity in our communities and do not pose a threat is contrary to humanitarian principles and our national interest,” wrote Gallup Bishop James S. Wall, Archbishop of Santa Fe John C. Wester and Las Cruces Bishop Peter Baldacchino in an open letter.
