Bay Ridge activists band together to call for the passing of a clean Dream Act
A bevy of Bay Ridge and citywide organizations banded together on Monday, February 5 to urge Congressmember Dan Donovan and Senator Chuck Schumer to help pass a clean Dream Act before Congress’ February 8 budget deadline.
The 2017 Dream Act is a bipartisan legislative solution for over 2.1 million immigrant youth and young adults who came to the states as children but have no pathway to citizenship, who had been covered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program begun under President Barack Obama and ended last year by President Donald Trump.
The rally – held at the corner of 86th Street and Fourth Avenue in temperatures as low as the mid-20s – was hosted by the Arab American Association of New York, Fight Back Bay Ridge, Bay Ridge for Social Justice, South Brooklyn Progressive Resistance and the New York Immigration Coalition.
“It was incredible to see local residents from Bay Ridge – a neighborhood of immigrants – come together and rally in support of protecting our Dreamers,” said Andrew Gounardes, a Bay Ridge resident and candidate for the Democratic nomination to square off against State Senator Marty Golden in November. “Although the Dream Act is being debated down in Washington, the front lines of the fight to make sure that children raised in this country can stay in this country are right here in our local community. We need a clean Dream Act and we need it now.”