Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is threatening to attach a bill that protects DACA recipients to any and every must-pass legislation that moves this fall if Republicans fail to bring legislation to help the 800,000 illegal immigrants who were brought to the country as children.
"Congress has an ability and an obligation to act, which is why we today are calling on Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell to immediately put the DREAM Act on the floor for a vote in the House and Senate," Schumer said during a press conference with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
"But let us say this, and I think I speak for the Leader as well, if a clean DREAM Act does not come to the floor in September, we're prepared to attach it to other items this Fall until it passes," he added.
Schumer slammed President Trump's decision to end DACA as "heartless" and "brainless."
“If this order stands, hundreds, hundreds of thousands of families will be ripped apart, tens of thousands of American businesses will lose hard-working employees,” the New York Democrat said.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program would be rescinded with a six-month delay.
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"We are a people of compassion and we are a people of law. But there is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws," Sessions said during the announcement.
Surprisingly, Schumer had a similar view in 2009.
“First, illegal immigration is wrong,” Schumer said during a speech at the Immigration Law & Policy Conference at Georgetown Law. “A primary goal of comprehensive immigration reform must be to dramatically curtail future illegal immigration.”
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