Pelosi: Ryan must bring the DREAM Act to the floor

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called on House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to bring the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act to the floor for a vote following President Trump’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

In a statement following Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s announcement on DACA, Pelosi called the decision “deeply shameful” and “heartless.”

“The President’s cruel and heartless decision to start deporting DREAMers in six months demands an immediate response from the Republican Congress,” Pelosi said. “Speaker Ryan and the Republican House leadership must bring the DREAM Act to the floor for a vote without delay.”

{mosads}Sessions on Tuesday announced that the DACA program, which temporarily prevented the deportation of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors and pursued work permits, would be phased out.

Pelosi said the deportation of DREAMers will devastate “the lives of hundreds of thousands of patriotic young people.”

“President Trump’s decision to end DACA is a deeply shameful act of political cowardice and a despicable assault on innocent young people in communities across America,” the minority leader said.

“Deporting DREAMers means destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of patriotic young people, costing the economy billions and betraying the fundamental values of the American Dream.”

New bipartisan versions of the DREAM Act, which was first introduced to Congress in 2001, have been presented in both chambers in recent months.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) also called the administration’s decision to end DACA “heartless” and vowed that Senate Democrats would “do everything we can to prevent President Trump’s terribly wrong order from becoming reality.”