Praying With Dreamers – #Faith4Dream Week!
During Faith Week Over 40 Organizations and Thousands of Faith Leaders Urge Congress to Pass the Dream Act
Click here for letters of support from leading faith-based organizations urging Congress to take up a legislative solution immediately. Throughout the week we sent over 40 letters representing hundreds of faith-based organizations, agencies, and communities, and millions of faithful people across the United States.
See this resource to get involved. Please click here for sample talking points!
Meet with your members of Congress with our Neighbor to Neighbor meeting toolkit.
Dream Sabbath 2017: Join Us to Stand in Solidarity with Immigrant Youth
Map of events at http://www.interfaithimmigration.org/dream-sabaath-events-page/
President Trump has rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and Congress has less than six months to pass the Dream Act to protect 800,000 immigrant youth from deportation.
The Interfaith Immigration Coalition invites people of all faiths to stand in solidarity with immigrant youth by organizing a Dream Sabbath, ideally before the end of October. A Dream Sabbath can be dedicating time during a regular weekly worship service to having immigrant youth share their stories and asking congregants to take action in support of the Dream Act, or it can be a vigil, meeting with your Senators and Representatives, etc.
The Dream Sabbath toolkit can be found here as a PDF and here as a word doc. You can also find a resource for doing solidarity prayer vigils on college and university campuses here. Please share these resources far and wide!
Please make sure to put your event on this map: Add you own event at bit.ly/DreamSabbathMap or email your event to nandersen@cwsglobal.org, so we can demonstrate the breadth of support from people of faith across the country.
See Dream Sabbath Map of Events http://www.interfaithimmigration.org/dream-sabaath-events-page/
Take this sheet to the offices of your members of Congress. You can also write an op-ed in support of Dreamers and the Dream Act of 2017, here is a template op-ed for faith leaders you are free to use.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress to Protect Dreamers and Pass a Clean Dream Act!
The consequences of repealing DACA are immediate, devastating, and profound. DACA’s termination puts nearly 800,000 lives at risk, threatens the sanctity of family unity, and jeopardizes our communities and economy. Click here to read the interfaith press statement opposing DACA’s termination and here for CWS’s statement.
We need to make our voices heard today and call on our elected leaders to do everything in their power to support a clean passage of The Dream Act of 2017 and protect immigrant youth! Click here to take action! Please visit www.weareheretostay.
The bipartisan Dream Act of 2017 has broad support from the faith community and would provide a pathway to citizenship for young Dreamers who have waited for over 16 years for Congress to act. DACA has allowed young people to pursue their dreams, live without fear of deportation in the country they call home, and invest in their future and in the future of our country. Ending DACA is morally reprehensible and denies hundreds of thousands of young people the chance to pursue their dreams. Our immigrant brothers and sisters deserve dignity, welcome, and the opportunity to flourish. Faith communities across traditions have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to immigrant youth and their families, advocating for the DREAM Act, writing letters and filing Amicus briefs in support of the DACA program, and calling on all elected leaders to champion policies that would create a path to citizenship for undocumented individuals in the United States.
More than 850 Faith Leaders and Groups Urge Congress to Pass a Clean Dream Act of 2017!
The letter was signed by more than 850 faith leaders
Here are the latest examples of thousands of clergy, faith organizations, and other people of faith standing up to support DACA and DACAmented young people in our communities:
- Leaders from 40 Quaker schools and colleges sent a letter to President Trump in support of the DACA program and its recipients – https://www.fcnl.org/updates/
1014 - In August 2017, over one thousand religious leaders sent a letter to President Trump in support of DACA – http://www.
interfaithimmigration.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/08/ Interfaith-Sign-on-to-Support- DACA.pdf - The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic Charities USA, and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. sent this letter on Tuesday to President Trump, urging him to keep DACA in place and work with Congress for legislation – https://justiceforimmigrants.
org/uncategorized/letter- president-trump-deferred- action-childhood-arrivals- daca/ - The Evangelical Immigration Table sent letters to President Trump on Wednesday – http://
evangelicalimmigrationtable. com/eit-dreamer-letter-8-30- 2017/ - A letter With Dreamers signed by thousands of faith leaders, elected officials and other civic leaders was also sent on Wednesday – http://www.withdreamers.com/
- Over 1,300 Catholic educators wrote to General Kelly affirming their hope he will support their students with DACA status – https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.
faithinpubliclife.org/images/ RC_educators_letter_8.28_-_ updated.pdf
Below is a list of faith leader opinion editorials supporting DACA:
- Illinois: August 15, 2017 – The Hill, Supporting ‘Dreamers’ is our civic and moral duty
- Maryland: August 10, 2017 – Baltimore Sun, Bishops: anti-immigrant sentiment a test of our faith
- New Mexico: August 15, 2017 – The Hill, Opinion|DACA helps achieve the American dream, don’t take it away
- National: August 14th, 2017 – Forward, As Jews, Dreamers Are Our Children, Too
- National: August 16th, 2017 -Patheos, 5 years After Its Introduction, DACA Deserves Our Protection
- National: September 4, 2017 – The Huffington Post, Indicted Texas Attorney General Threatens Legal Action Over DACA
For stories in of DACA recipents in defense of DACA please visit: NILC’s Fifth Anniversary Stories Page
For more information on how DACA Recipients’ Economic and Educational Gains Continue to Grow, please visit: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2017/08/28/437956/daca-recipients-economic-educational-gains-continue-grow/
For more information on how you can help defend DACA, click here to check out “5 Ways to Defend DACA & TPS.” Also click here for a faith toolkit and click here for the Interfaith Bank Boycott Campaign.
Our Previous Work on Dreamer Legislation and DACA
Faith Organization Amicus Brief in Support of DACA/DAPA to the Supreme Court of the United States
Legislative Solutions for Dreamers and the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM Act)
Each year approximately 50,000-65,000 undocumented students graduate from American high schools. Many of these students were brought to the United States when they were very young and grew up in American schools, learning American values and experiencing American culture.
Unfortunately the majority of these individuals are not able to access higher education due to the lack of in-state tuition for undocumented students and because of their inability to work legally to pay for school. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act offers an opportunity for these students to apply for conditional legal status and eventual citizenship based on strong character, hard work and the pursuit of military service or higher education.
The DREAM Act would also overturn a federal law punishing states that choose to provide in-state tuition to undocumented students. Although in 2010 the DREAM Act fell short of breaking a filibuster in 2010 the IIC still led the DREAM Sabbath of 2011 to involve congregations in this student movement for immigrant justice.
2012: Launching the DACA Program
The Interfaith Immigration Coalition along with so many service organizations and immigrants’ rights advocates, celebrates Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) announced June 15 by President Obama and Secretary Janet Napolitano. However, we know that this is an impermanent solution, and that we must continue to work towards passing the DREAM Act to fully embrace and welcome these talented young people into our communities.
DACA will provide work permits and relief from deportation for youth who meet the requirements. The Interfaith Immigration Coalition have been working on this for a long time, following the lead of DREAM Act youth organizing to make DACA happen. In our DREAM Sabbath of 2011 CWS member denominations held hundreds of educational forums on the DREAM Act in their local congregations, broadening the awareness and moving people to action and advocacy.
The need for legal services in applying to DACA is tremendous and exponential as more eligible youth come forward. Within the first month of the program, which began on August 15, 82,000 youth applied for DACA and that number will continue to grow. There are approximately 900,000 that can currently apply to the program, but as many as 1.76 million youth eventually will have the. CWS is providing immigration legal services to hundreds of eligible youth across the country, responding to the great need for more accredited legal counsel in this process. Read more at CWS Blog
More Resources
United We Dream