Statewide car caravans leaving Sacramento and Los Angeles on Tuesday will end the day by converging in Bakersfield at 4:30 p.m. outside the district office of U.S. Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) to mark the 5th anniversary of the DACA program protecting Dreamers that could be eliminated by the Trump administration and by a threatened lawsuit filed next month by Republican elected officials in Texas and nine other states.
Car caravanners and local activists from the UFW Foundation, Dolores Huerta Foundation, SEIU Local 521 and Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles will use the anniversary to urge Valadao to unequivocally support DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which since President Obama signed it in 2012 has protected from deportation nearly 800,000 young people nationally who were brought to this country as children and have known no other home.
Valadao has said he backs DACA, but the congressman signed a friend of the court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court opposing expanding DACA and he voted to keep in power Speaker Paul Ryan, who vowed not to bring up for a vote in the House of Representatives any meaningful immigration reform bill while President Obama was in office.
While at his office, activists will also urge Valadao to support the Agricultural Workers Program Act letting undocumented farm workers legally remain in the United States. It is authored by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) plus dozens of other House members. The Feinstein-Gutierrez measure would allow field laborers now employed on American farms to apply for “Blue Card” status giving them the legal right to stay instead of importing large numbers of guest workers from outside the country.
Who: Car caravans from Sacramento and Los Angeles, local immigration reform activists
What: Converging in Bakersfield to mark the 5th anniversary of DACA by urging Rep. David Valadao to unequivocally support DACA and the Dreamers
When: 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017
Where: Rep. David Valadao’s district office, 2700 M St., Suite 250B, Bakersfield 93301
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