DACA Supporters Gather At Congressman’s Office

A number of constituents rallied outside of Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick’s office Wednesday to demand definitive support for recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

The rally came within 24 hours of the announcement by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that the program protecting people who came to the country as children illegally, would cease in six months’ time. However, President Donald Trump has encouraged congress to look at possible solutions.

The group of about 20 demonstrators came to the congressman’s office, bearing shoes representing what would be left behind if all 800,000 DACA beneficiaries were deported all at once. The demonstration attempted to get the congressman’s attention and demand action or rhetoric on the issue.

“I want him to publicly give his support for DACA recipients,” said one of the demonstrators, Karen Rodriguez, a member of Bucks-Mont Inclusive and Progressive.

For Rodriguez, Fitzpatrick should also voice support for the Dreamer 2017 bill, which would protect DACA recipients.

“They were brought here with their parents, and this is incredibly unfair,” Rodriguez explained.

Rodriguez was joined by Laura Rose, one of the leaders of their group.

“This is a betrayal of our American values,” she said.

During their assembly, the group of demonstrators went to Fitzpatrick’s office on the fourth floor of One Summit Trace in Middletown and created a display across from his office. Lots of shoes, handwritten notes and images of “dreamers,” as the DACA recipients are known, would greet anyone leaving the congressman’s office.

“We’re here today so that Congressman Fitzpatrick knows that we are going to stand with all immigrants,” Mohan Seshadri told the gathering.

Seshadri is the regional field director of Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates. The event was called for by a group named Make the Road Pennsylvania, which is calling for the passage of a “clean” Dreamers 2017 act. The clean comes from not allowing funding for other practices like the hypothetical wall on the southern border.

“We’re going to go all out because these people’s lives are at stake,” Seshadri said.

Fitzpatrick put out an official statement on the decision by the Trump adminitration to end DACA:

“From dangerous ‘Sanctuary City’ policies to the national security threat posed by our compromised borders, it is clear that our immigration system is broken and there is much that needs to be done to fix it.  No sustainable fix, however, will be found through executive action only; in fact, it was the previous administration’s usurping of Congressional lawmaking authority which complicated this issue in the first place. Congress must reassert its authority and work to fix our immigration system by taking into account all aspects of the issue – from enacting ‘Kate’s Law’ to deport those who commit crimes while here illegally, to defunding sanctuary cities, to securing operational control of our borders, to treating with compassion those children who were brought here due to no fault of their own, in a manner that is becoming of American ideals and values.”

“That’s not good enough. The dreamers I know don’t want to be held hostage,”  Seshadri said.

Congress has until March of 2018 to act on immigration and create lasting protection for dreamers.