Sen. Luján pressures Biden to protect DACA recipients

U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján is pressuring President Joe Biden to protect DACA recipients in the waning days of his presidential term, while the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops has urged incoming President-elect Donald Trump to rethink his promise of mass deportations.

“I’ve been very concerned with what I’ve been hearing from the incoming president, and more so, some of the folks that he’s brought in around him that have been saying that they’re going to start targeting folks across the country who are our Dreamers, who are DACA,” Luján told the Journal.

The New Mexico Democrat, alongside his Congressional Hispanic Caucus colleagues, Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Alex Padilla of California, sent Biden a letter the first week of December asking him to protect DACA recipients by streamlining DACA reauthorizations and to extend Temporary Protected Status for Ecuador, Nicaragua and El Salvador. The trio reiterated their call Wednesday at a Washington news conference.

The decade-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program allows people who came to the U.S. as children to apply for deferred removal for two years and get authorization to work. The application can be renewed.

The Temporary Protected Status program was established in the 1990s to help people fleeing persecution and violence legally reside in the U.S.

The senators have not heard yet from Biden whether his administration will take action, Luján said.

“I pray that President Biden does the right thing in the closing days. And I also am hopeful and prayerful that under President Trump, that Dreamers will be respected as well, and there’s going to be policy that we can all work on together as Democrats and Republicans,” he said.

If mass deportations are carried out, as Trump promised during his presidential campaign, Luján is concerned that more families would be separated.

“We will see American families torn apart, American citizens torn apart from their families, No. 1, which is not American,” Luján said. “No. 2, we would see a very negative impact in the U.S. economy and in New Mexico if, in fact, the Trump administration carried this out.”

Instead of mass deportations, Luján would like Congress to pursue comprehensive immigration reform and potentially invest in Border Patrol and immigration courts.

In the first week of December, the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops also called on Trump to rethink mass deportations.

They believe “that a mass deportation policy will not fix the broken immigration system but, rather, create chaos, family separation and the traumatization of children.”

“While removing those who cause harm to us is necessary, deporting immigrants who have built equities in our communities and pose no threat is contrary to humanitarian principles and to our national interest,” wrote Gallup Bishop James S. Wall, Santa Fe Archbishop John C. Wester and Las Cruces Bishop Peter Baldacchino in an open letter.

Cathy Cook is a news reporter for the Albuquerque Journal. Reach her via email at ccook@abqjournal.com.