Washington, D.C. – Yesterday the Department of Homeland Security announced a final regulation on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which will be published Tuesday and take effect October 31, 2022. The U.S. Conference of Mayors strongly supports DACA, which provides critical protection for Dreamers, people brought to this country at a young age and who call it home. Following is a statement by the bipartisan Co-chairs of the U.S Conference of Mayors Task Force on Immigration Reform, Mayor Jorge Elorza of Providence and Mayor John Giles of Mesa, and the organization’s CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran.
“We applaud the Biden Administration’s continuing efforts to strengthen the DACA program and ensure that DACA recipients are able to continue to live, go to school, work and build families in the country they call home. Ten years ago, the Conference called on the Administration to establish DACA and praised President Obama and then Vice President Biden for doing so. The Conference has had strong policy supporting a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and extension of the DACA program for many years. Our bipartisan organization has adopted this policy because it is the right thing to do – for Dreamers, for our communities, and for our country.
“But more is needed. We urge Congress to act quickly to provide permanent protection from deportation and a path to citizenship for all Dreamers – people who have lived in the United States since they were children and built their lives here. The U.S. Conference of Mayors stands ready to work with Congress to make this happen.”