—USCCB study (with partners), “One Part of the Body”, April 2025

On DACA anniversary, urge Congress to pass the DREAM Act

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is marking its fourteenth anniversary today, June 15. It provides protection from deportation and eligibility for work permits for over 500,000 people in the U.S. without legal status who were brought here as children. This status must be renewed every two years, and the protection exists only by executive order, a patch on our immigration system because Congress has failed to pass the DREAM Act (i.e., Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors). The DREAM Act would protect “Dreamers” long term and create a path to permanent residency for these immigrants who largely spent their whole lives as members of U.S. communities. The bill has received bipartisan support by a majority of both chambers of Congress several times since its first introduction in 2001, but it has never overcome a filibuster in the Senate.

On this anniversary of DACA, its protections are crumbling under actions of the current administration, which has detained and deported DACA recipients and is making their lives extremely difficult to encourage them to self-deport. Mercy advocates are joining partner organizations like United We Dream and Home is Here in urging all members of Congress to back the DREAM Act and create stability for this more than half a million of our long-term immigrant neighbors. Many Dreamers are now established adults in our communities, with children in neighborhood schools, essential jobs in every sector of our economy, and deep relationships in our places of worship, but without Congress’s action, they could be (and are being) torn out of the fabric of our lives at any time, leaving gaping holes in our families and communities. There is no reason anyone should endure this unnecessary cruelty and suffering.

Please use the draft email in the grey box at right (below on mobile devices) to urge your senators and representative to cosponsor the DREAM Act (S.3348 / H.R.1589), issue public statements of support, work with their colleagues and caucuses to bring the bill for a vote, and vote YES in committees and on the floor.