The House Judiciary Committee March 6 held a hearing titled, “Protecting Dreamers and TPS Recipients.” The hearing discussed the pending introduction of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM Act), which would provide permanent resident status to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients.
In his opening statement, Chair Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) discussed the need to pass the DREAM Act in order to protect DACA and TPS recipients who he deemed as “integral parts of our communities.” The Chairman noted many Dreamers (DACA recipients) do not know they are undocumented and are unable “to obtain federal financial assistance for post-secondary education; or even, in most states, to attend college or university at the in-state tuition rates that their U.S. citizen and lawful permanent resident classmates, and their U.S. citizen siblings, pay.” Ranking Member Doug Collins (R-Ga.) discussed the need for bipartisan immigration reform to protect DACA recipients in his opening statement.
Witnesses included many DACA and TPS recipients, including Yazmin Irazoqui-Ruiz, a medical student at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. In her testimony, Ms. Irazoqui-Ruiz discussed the fears she and her family had by being undocumented and how she was told “that individuals without documentation simply did not matter and couldn’t attend college.”