BY TEQUILA MINSKY | On Wed., March 20, at the Tenement Museum, on Orchard St., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Congressmembers Nydia Velazquez, Yvette Clarke, Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, along with community activists, called for passage of H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act of 2019.
The act, introduced March 12 by Congressmember Lucille Roybal-Allard, with co-sponsors Velazquez and Clarke, alongside House Democratic leadership, provides protection from deportation for Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) recipients and an opportunity to obtain permanent legal status in the United States, if they meet certain requirements.
According to The Center for America Progress, the average TPS recipient has lived in the U.S. for 22 years — the vast majority of that time in lawful status; while those who received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) came to America at age 6.
The National Immigration Forum writes that protections in the American Dream and Promise Act would allow nearly 700,000 DACA recipients, as well as another 1.6 million eligible Dreamers brought to America as children, to stay in the U.S. The bill’s protections would also allow more than 300,000 TPS holders and up to 3,600 individuals with DED status to have the opportunity to remain in the country.
The Tenement Museum focuses on the history of Lower East Side immigrant families who lived in its two historic tenements during different eras.
