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Norton Praises House Action on DREAMers, Pathway to Citizenship

June 5, 2019

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said that House passage yesterday of the American Dream and Promise Act (H.R. 6) shows the priority Democrats put on establishing "a path to citizenship" not only for DREAMers, but for Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure holders as well.

Norton released the following statement, submitted to the Congressional Record:

"The treatment of the Dreamers, brought to this country by their parents and others with unsettled status, is un-American and must be set right by the rational process outlined by H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act of 2019. The Dreamers have come to symbolize the entire group of individuals who have been left in the shadows, where they experience the fear of the hunted. The Dreamers have lived among us for almost their entire lives. I have invited Dreamers who live in the District of Columbia to a public meeting to talk about their lives. They are fulfilling their own dreams going to college and working in good jobs.

"The shame of our failure to permanently settle the Dreamers question will not go away as long as we leave them and others living without settled legal status twisting in the wind. H.R. 6 does not pretend to settle this issue. Rather, it establishes a path to citizenship not only for Dreamers but also for Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure holders.

"Never before in American history have we left any group of people in our country in legal limbo. H.R. 6 presents the ordered and predictable process this issue has long needed. These issues and these people will not go away. The House has an obligation to use our new majority to set this issue on the path to resolution."