Attorney General Ellison joins coalition to preserve DACA

On Friday, Attorney General Keith Ellison joined a coalition of 24 attorneys general in supporting the federal government’s efforts to protect and secure the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

In a letter to Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ellison and the coalition highlight the contributions of hundreds of thousands of Dreamers to the economy and communities across Minnesota and the United States.

The coalition says that since 2012, DACA has protected the recipients from deportation to hundreds of thousands of individuals who arrived in the United States as children, grew up here and know no other home. The program allows recipients to live, study, and work across the United States free from the fear of being deported and separated from their families.

Ellison and the other attorneys general urge the federal government to finalize regulations codifying DACA and ensure that states can continue to benefit from the program.

The new federal rules would preserve the DACA benefits already received by about 6,500 people in Minnesota. In addition, they would allow up to 5,000 additional individuals living in Minnesota to apply for the benefits.

"Thousands of Minnesotans who were brought here as children know no other home than our state. Like all Minnesotans, they just want to be able to afford their lives and live with dignity, safety, and respect," Ellison said. "I’m asking the federal government to act so that they can keep contributing to our communities."

In the letter, Ellison and the coalition assert that:

• DACA has public safety and public health benefits for the states.
• The states benefit economically from DACA and DACA recipients.
• DACA and DACA recipients are important to the states’ higher education institutions
• The states have adopted laws, regulations, and programs in reliance on DACA.
• Opponents of DACA are unable to substantiate any alleged harms from the program.

Ellison is joined in the letter by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who led the coalition, and the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

A copy of the letter is available here.