According to the Williams Institute there are over 75,000 LGBTQ DREAMers in the U.S. Now the Trump administration has made a cruel & appalling decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that protects undocumented immigrants who arrived in America as children & our LGBTQ leaders are speaking OUT. Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force stated, “The Task Force strongly condemns President Trump’s action to end the dreams of 800,000 young immigrants through his decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). This decision is not only unconscionable, it flies in the face of wide bi-partisan support as well as the backing of business leaders, educators & millions of Americans who fully support DACA and all that it represents for American immigrants…” Michael Adams CEP of SAGE added, “This is yet another act of bigotry & discrimination against our LGBT community by the Trump administration – this time against young immigrants who have been protected from deportation since 2012 because of a broad national consensus that this is the right thing to do. Deporting thousands of young teachers, doctors, medical school students & other community members is inhumane and will cost taxpayers millions of dollars. We at SAGE, on behalf of LGBT elders across the country, are repulsed by this latest gratuitous attack on another vulnerable group in our community.” Hannah Willard Equality Florida’s Senior Policy Director concluded, “…In Florida, approximately 4,000 DACA eligible undocumented youth identify as LGBTQ. Subjecting this vulnerable population to deportation threatens their safety. LGBTQ immigrants disproportionately experience violence & sexual abuse while in detainment facilities & often face anti-LGBTQ persecution in their native countries. The Orlando community faced a harsh reminder of the particular fears and challenges experienced by undocumented queer folks in the wake of the Pulse massacre, as undocumented survivors delayed seeking help for fear of deportation & special arrangements had to be made for the undocumented family members of victims’ to be able to memorialize loved ones who were taken from them…”
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Protecting Americans should be Congress's first priority now. They must come up with a plan that immediately saves the DACA program so that 800,000 American youth can breathe easy again and not live in fear as Jews and Gays and Gypsies and other groups branded "undesirable" did in Nazi Germany.
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