TAKE ACTION: Supreme Court rules in favor of DREAMers. Next step: Senate must give them permanent legal status. Although the Supreme Court ruling is positive, it is not the end game. Unless Congress legalizes the status of these immigrants, they could be placed into deportation proceedings, tearing families apart. Call your US senators 202 224 3121. Tell them that "I hope the senator will stand up for immigrant families and urge the leadership in the Senate to introduce the Dream and Promise Act and move it along in committee. Will you let me know what the senator is doing to protect DREAMers and TPS holders?”
Some 650,000 DREAMers are temporarily safe from deportation (at least for now) because of today’s Supreme Court ruling against the Trump administration. Chief Justice John Roberts cast the deciding vote when he joined the court's four liberal justices. Their ruling: the 2017 decision by DHS (Department of Homeland Security) to rescind DACA was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. This is an unexpected and positive ruling, but the fight on behalf of the DREAMers is far from over. DACA recipients have gotten advanced degrees; they have started businesses; they have bought houses, had children who are U.S. citizens; and 90% have jobs. Some 29,000 DREAMers are health care professionals. It’s no surprise that the majority of people in the US want the DREAMers to stay. But this won’t happen until Senator Mitch McConnell introduces the American Dream and Promise Act onto the Senate floor. The bill, which would give permanent legal status and path to citizenship for the DREAMers, was passed by the US House with an overwhelming majority on June 4, 2019. The Senate has stalled, refusing to take up this crucial piece of legislation.
From Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction: There are at least 125 inmates with coronavirus in Ohio jails and 4,437 in the state’s prisons. Of the 78 inmates in the Morrow County Jail, 50 contracted coronavirus. It’s the second-highest number of coronavirus cases in any jail in Ohio. From the testimony of three Morrow inmates (ICE detainees) before US District Court Judge Sarah Morrison in Columbus on May 11: They reported that they sleep in such cramped quarters that they can reach out and touch four other beds. One testified that despite being in the area of the jail that houses coronavirus patients for 16 days, no jail employee had cleaned the area. Detainees get clean clothes every three or four days. Corrections officers take their temperatures, not nurses, and the thermometers used are more than three years beyond their expiration dates.
