Democrats Fire Up Push for DACA Amnesty in Session Before GOP Takes House

The Senate majority leader said Democrats’ ultimate goal is citizenship for all U.S. illegal aliens but wants DACA amnesty now.

“The election is over. Voters rejected the deeply anti-immigrant message of MAGA Republicans and Senate Republicans must now come to the table and offer realistic solutions to fix DACA,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said during a press conference last week. “I call on my Republican colleagues to join Democrats and help us protect our Dreamers. It is cruel and inhumane to keep millions in limbo.”

Fox News further reported:

Democrats and immigration activists are looking to get some form of amnesty for illegal immigrants through Congress in the lame duck session before they lose the House of Representatives to Republicans at the beginning of 2023.

Senators and activists held a press conference Wednesday calling for Republicans in the chamber to work with Democrats to pass a version of the DREAM Act, which would grant a path to citizenship for recipients (and those otherwise eligible) of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

That program, established by President Barack Obama in 2012, granted protection from deportation for millions of illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. The program was recently dealt a blow when an appeals court upheld a 2021 ruling that prevented further enrollments, which was found to be illegal.

While it does not affect the approximately 700,000 already enrolled, the ruling fueled new pushes for a permanent “fix.” However, the DREAM Act would go beyond that 700,000 with advocates estimating it could give a pathway to citizenship for approximately two million.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said that with Republicans set to take control of the House, time was running out to get legislation passed and demanded action after the Thanksgiving break.

“We know that it’s important in December, that we pass the DREAM Act — December of this year when we return from Thanksgiving — because if the House moves, as we think it might politically, it becomes increasingly difficult after the first of the year to take up this issue. We need to do it now and to do it we need bipartisan support in the Senate,” Durbin said.

Durbin said there are four or five Republicans who would support it, but Democrats need “10 Republicans who will step up and join us in this effort” to overcome a filibuster.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, however, said that while the short-term goal was the DREAM Act, the ultimate goal is much broader, but that would wait for the next Senate.

“We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to,” Senator Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants, the dreamers and all of them, because our ultimate goal is to help the dreamers, but get a path to citizenship for all 11 million or however many undocumented there are here. And we will be pursuing that in the next Senate.”

“Right now, our focus is on dreamers.”