Cuomo: N.Y. State will sue feds over ‘Dreamers’ protections ending
Cuomo: State will sue feds over ‘Dreamers’ protections ending
Updated September 4, 2017 2:17 PM
By Scott Eidler and Víctor Manuel Ramos scott.eidler@newsday.com, victor.ramos@newsday.com
http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1...600/image.jpegImmigrant communities and supporters protest near Trump Tower to defend DACA for so-called "Dreamers" on Aug. 15, 2017. Photo Credit: Yeong-Ung Yang
New York State will sue the federal government if President Donald Trump ends the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy as he is expected to announce, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said Monday.
Trump is to disclose Tuesday that his administration will end the program known as DACA — with a six-month delay — that protects young immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” who entered the country illegally as children, according to news reports. The act protects the children whofound themselves illegally in this country through no fault of their own.
“If he moves forward with this cruel action, New York State will sue to protect the ‘dreamers’ and the state’s sovereign interest in the fair and equal application of the law,” Cuomo said in a news release, noting that protections under DACA affect about 42,000 New Yorkers. “It will rip families apart, sow havoc in our communities and force innocent people — our neighbors, our friends, and our relatives — to live in fear.”
Schneiderman said in the release that Trump’s expected decision “would be cruel, gratuitous, and devastating to tens of thousands of New Yorkers — and I will sue to protect them.
Dreamers are Americans in every way. They played by the rules. They pay their taxes. And they’ve earned the right to stay in the only home they have ever known.”
Schneiderman added, “They pay more than $140 million in state and local taxes. They are vital members of our community. The poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty — written by the descendant of early Jewish immigrants — promises this nation will “lift its lamp” for the huddled masses.
New York will never break that promise. And neither will my office.”
NationSources: Trump expected to end 'Dreamers' programhttp://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1..._640/image.jpg
DACA was an executive action issued in June 2012 by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama, allowing a subset of immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children, or who overstayed visas, to stay in the country without immediate fear of deportation. DACA grants protections to nearly 788,000 young immigrants from immigration enforcement and permits them to work and study legally in the United States, according to figures updated in March by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Many have renewed their permission to stay once or twice since the program started.
About 14,000 Dreamers on Long Island were eligible for the protections when the program was rolled out, according to the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., though it’s not clear how many of them applied and were accepted.
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