SEIU's Saenz: "DACA recipients get to keep their jobs - including thousands of essential workers doing crucial work during the coronavirus pandemic - and remain with their families."

SEIU Executive Vice President Rocio Sáenz released the following statement today celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision to reject the Trump administration’s efforts to rip protections away from over 600,000 DACA recipients.

"Today’s Supreme Court decision undoing the Trump administration’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) provides a huge measure of peace and relief to more than 600,000 DACA recipients who all arrived here as children more than 12 years ago. But it also puts the ball back in Trump’s and the Congress’s hands. 

DACA recipients have made invaluable contributions to the American labor force as doctors, lawyers, teachers, community health workers, janitors, homecare providers, and more. They are the working parents and siblings of 200,000 adolescent American citizens, providing what is often their family’s sole source of income.

Today’s Supreme Court decision protects hundreds of thousands of young people from losing their jobs and being deported.  DACA recipients get to keep their jobs  - including thousands of essential workers doing crucial work during the coronavirus pandemic - and remain with their families.    

SEIU stands with DACA recipients in our communities and calls on the administration to stop its efforts to terminate DACA and to restore the pre-termination application process to protect hundreds of thousands of Dreamers who don’t have DACA now solely because they were too young to qualify when it was terminated. We also call on Congress to immediately pass legislation permanently protecting Dreamers and all undocumented people."