The House of Representatives kicked off 2015 with the Republican Party attempting to use a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security as a way to block the executive action on immigration reform taken by President Obama ‒ a bill that Obama has already said he will veto if passed by the Senate.
Immigration advocate and lawyer Melissa Lopez says that the President’s promise to veto the bill, should it pass through the Senate, should give heart to those afraid that they will end up being deported because they have given the US government their personal details in the hope of being granted legal status. She believes that advocates for immigrants and immigration reform need to continue to speak out about the positive changes experienced by those they help and how this impacts on local communities.
“It’s tough sometimes because people get nervous speaking to the media,” Lopez admits. “It’s important for people to put a face to a DACA case to be able to know what DACA looks like in a human being as compared to rhetoric [others] hear from the media.”
White House domestic policy director Cecilia Munoz says that the bill, if passed, would put millions of undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children and who have no experience of any other nation or way of life at risk. She adds that all the Republican Party will achieve with its actions is to undo the only constructive and significant movement on immigration reform to have been made in years.