Statement of Mary Meg McCarthy, Executive Director, National Immigrant Justice Center

The National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) urges Congress to reject the SECURE Act and other cynical attempts to scuttle efforts to pass the bipartisan Dream Act. Nearly 10,000 young people have already lost their protection from deportation under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and more than one hundred more will continue to lose it every day, throwing families and communities into chaos. Dreamers and their American families and neighbors need permanent protection and stability now.

The SECURE Act contains more than 500 pages of anti-immigrant provisions that would supercharge the ability of the Department of Homeland Security to expand its campaign of terror against immigrant communities. Among numerous horrors, the bill singles out refugees and children for particular ire, with measures that would exile most asylum seekers and unaccompanied children to destruction and death. In exchange for this encyclopedia of poison pills, the bill offers only temporary protection to Dreamers, robbing them and our economy and our communities of the stability and permanence we need.

Congress and the administration must stop using Dreamers as bargaining chips. Our American and human values demand a permanent solution for these young people, free of measures that would further facilitate the detention and deportation of our immigrant communities.