Popular Education

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IDEPSCA Response to Yesterday's Fifth Circuit Court Decision on DAPA/DACA 2

For Immediate Release : Nov. 10, 2015
Los Angeles, CA
Contact : Maegan Ortiz
maegan@idepsca.org
213-252-2952

Maegan E. Ortiz, Interim Executive Director released the following statement regarding yesterday's DAPA/DACA 2 Decision:

"The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans decision to uphold an injunction by a Texas-based judge to prevent a temporary reprieve in the form of DAPA and expanded DACA does not come as a surprise. The court has a conservative record and amidst the current rhetoric around immigration reform many within the diverse immigration expect this to open the door for the Department of Justice to take the case to the Supreme Court.

Regardless of whether the Obama administration appeals the decision, communities who have borne the brunt of policies and practices from a Democratic administration that continues to detain and deport record numbers of individuals : men, women, children, mothers, fathers, workers, trans and queer individuals, and refugees seeking asylum know that DAPA and DACA never went far enough to begin with. Short term band aid solutions were never the demand from the ground. In the face of political rebranding of criminalization programs like 287(g) and Secure Communities it is our members who are currently inside detention centers like Adelanto. It is our members who are being monitored with ankle bracelets. It is our members who travel for hours to visit their sons behind bars.

When President Obama announced DAPA and expanded DACA almost a year ago many of our members cried but they were not tears of joy. Day Laborers, household workers, mothers and fathers - all immigrant workers, felt left out, again, and worse, felt more vulnerable that they could become another statistic among the detained and deported.

And yet our members have chanted and marched for DACA and DAPA and they will continue to. They hope that the Supreme Court will allow expanded DACA and DAPA to move forward and help some. Not because these temporary programs will help them but because they, and all of us, want President Obama to keep the promises he has been making since he was first elected in 2008. We want Obama to end his time in office undoing his massive criminalization of immigrants. We want less people behind bars, less people being disappeared from their homes and workplaces, less people afraid to look for work and less people afraid to speak out labor abuses like wage theft. Our members demand beyond DACA. Our members demand beyond DAPA."

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