In a press conference on Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made a bold declaration: if Republicans don’t agree to pass legislation this month to protect the estimated 800,000 people who would be left vulnerable by President Donald Trump‘s repeal of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), he won’t stop bugging them until they do.
“If a clean DREAM Act does not come to the floor in September, we are prepared to attach it to other items this fall until it passes,” Schumer said.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on Tuesday that DACA is being repealed, and will expire in six months’ time. President Trump put the burden on Congress to find a solution if they want to pass legislation to take its place. When President Barack Obama first instituted the program in 2012, he was criticized for doing something that only Congress truly had the power to do. In a statement posted to Facebook after Sessions’ announcement, Obama knocked Congress for not taking action in the first place, leading his administration to take action. Obama called the move “self-defeating” and “cruel.”
Schumer took the rhetoric a step further. “The president’s decision to end DACA was heartless and it was brainless,” he said. “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. We’re ready to pass it, I am confident that if put on the floor it will garner overwhelming support from both sides of the aisle.”
[Image via screengrab]