Gallego: House bill to block funding for legal status executive action attacks families
The recent bill proposed to deter President Obama's immigration actions attacks families and politicizes a humanitarian issue, U.S. Congressman Ruben Gallego said at a press conference at the Sandra Day O'Connor U.S. Courthouse on Thursday afternoon.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted Wednesday to block funding from Obama's executive action to give temporary legal status to certain undocumented immigrants. The order was given last November, and it aims to defer deportations for the parents of children who are U.S. citizens and ease restrictions on highly skilled workers and undocumented minors, among others.
"You do not have the right to call yourself the party of family values when you're using the legislative process to break up millions and millions of people," Gallego said.
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) are immigration policies that grant temporary legal permissions to those who came to the U.S. as minors as well as their parents. Gallego said the recent bill is an attempt to get rid of those policies.
Arizona is one of 25 states involved in the current Texas v. United States lawsuit to eliminate the DACA and DAPA programs.
"I ask … our governor of Arizona — please drop these lawsuits," Gallego said. "It is a humanitarian move to keep our families together."
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Source: Sarah Jarvis, Downtown Devil