Lawmakers continue to work out deal on DACA with Trump administration

UNION CITY, CA — Recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, along with their advocates gather to strategize how to inform the community here in Union City of the rights undocumented immigrants still have.

It’s been a month since the Trump administration announced the rescindment of DACA, and since then, politicians have been trying to negotiate a deal with the president on keeping the DACA recipients in the US.

However, for these DACA advocates, such deals can be questionable.

“We need to make sure that what our elected officials do is provide adequate protections to immigrant and other vulnerable communities, and not couple them with unfair enforcement,” said Chris Cara from Filipino Advocates for Justice.

“I would say it needs to basically just to stick with the same DACA process and have immigration reform,” said Michael Chapman. “Those are the two things if they want to meet in the middle on they need to agree on those two things.”

On Sunday, Trump said that before any deal to protect the Dreamers can be made — money to fund the border wall and for more immigration officers must be included.

“We’re not talking about amnesty. We’re talking about – we’re talking about taking care of people, people that were brought here, people that have done a good job and were not brought here of their own volition. But very importantly, what we want, we have to have a wall. If the wall is going to be obstructed when we need the funds, at a little bit later date we’ll be determining how much we need, then we’re not doing anything.”

Trump’s proposal for a DACA deal:

• Build border wall
• Hire more immigration judges, attorneys, ice agents
• Tighter standards for asylum requests
• Restrict federal grants for “sanctuary cities”
• Electronic verification system to prevent undocumented from securing jobs

Trump’s proposal also includes a request to hire 370 more immigration judges, 1,000 attorneys for ICE, 300 federal prosecutors, and 10,000 more ICE agents.

Trump also calls for tighter standards for those seeking US asylum, denial of federal grants to sanctuary cities, and a requirement that employers use an electronic verification system to keep undocumented from getting jobs.

In a joint statement, Senate minority leader Charles Schumer and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi quickly blasted the Trump administration’s proposals, saying the administration provided a list of principles that cannot be accepted from the undocumented community all the while — and questioning if the president was actually serious in helping them at all.