Vice Presidential Pool Reports of July 22, 2021

VP Pool Report #1

Good morning,
The pool is gathering for today's DACA event with Vice-President which is scheduled to begin at 12.15.
The event will be in the Ceremonial Office of the Executive Office Building and we are expecting a pool spray at the top.

Background from the VP office:

Today, the Vice President will meet with DACA recipients, Dreamers without DACA, and immigrant rights leaders following the Texas District Court decision on DACA to discuss the impact of the court decision, how ultimately the status quo of these young people living with uncertainty is unsustainable, and how Congress needs to create a pathway to citizenship. The Vice President strongly believes that Dreamers are Americans, and they deserve the opportunity to choose and determine their own future.

The Vice President's work leading this event is a part of the Administration's larger plan that tackles our broken immigration system because we know these issues are interconnected: Expanding legal pathways for immigration, building a more fair and orderly infrastructure at our border, reunifying families who were separated, and providing a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, TPS holders, and farmworkers.

Participants:

• Diana Bautista, DACA Applicant CHIRLA Youth Member (virtual)
• Greisa Martinez, Advocacy Director, United We Dream
• Gustavo Cohetzaltitla, UFW Member
• Erika Lisseth Marchante, DACA Recipient and SEIU Member
• Patrice Lawrence, Co-Director, UndocuBlack Network (virtual)
• Sergio Gonzalez, Executive Director, The Immigration Hub
• Angelica Salas, Executive Director, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA)
• Hina Naveed, DACA Recipient and New York Immigration Coalition Member
• Susana "Susie" Lujano, DACA Recipient, UWD Member
• Gloria Elizabeth Blanco, DACA Recipient (virtual)
• Lorella Praeli, Co-President, Community Change Action
• Hugo Arreola Tinoco, DACA Recipient

Additional Background:

• Following President Biden's Oval Office meeting with six Dreamers on May 14, 2021, and Vice President Harris's meeting with immigrant women - including two DACA recipients – on June 15, 2021, the Biden-Harris Administration aims to continue uplifting the urgent need for a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, TPS Holders, and farmworkers.
• Vice President Harris has spent her career fighting for immigrants. As Attorney General and U.S. Senator, she has worked on these issues from a state with the largest DACA-eligible population.
• She has been a leading champion of DACA, opposed harmful policies of the Trump administration, like family separation, and continues to champion our immigrant communities.
  • Her first year in the Senate she was an original cosponsor of the Dream Act (now referred to as the American Dream and Promise Act)
  • In January 2017, during DHS Secretary-designee John Kelly's nomination hearings, she asked about whether he would uphold the DACA program, and questioned him about the use of law enforcement resources to target and deport Dreamers – which he declined to answer.
  • In November 2017, during the nomination hearing for DHS Secretary-designee Kirstjen Nielsen she asked her whether she would commit to not conducting immigration enforcement against DACA recipients or use their information for immigration enforcement. Nielsen replied that as Secretary of the DHS she would not do either.

VP Pool Report #2

Vice-president Harris was seated at the table with participants when the pool entered at 12.20 pm.

Main quotes below:

"It is my honor and pleasure" to welcome these leaders to the official office of the vice-president, VP Harris began. "The future of our country - that really is the topic of our conversation."

"If anyone wants to know who are our dreamers: Let me tell you who they are. They include members of our military, they are college students, they are people who work in Fortune 500, Fortune 50 companies, they are at 200,000 at least frontline workers who saved the lives and protected the lives of people they didn't know. That's who are our dreamers.
Many arrived in their home country, the United States, before they could walk or talk. Many have been living recently, these years, a life of uncertainty even though this is the only country they have ever known. They deserve a pathway to citizenship."

"I want to make clear to the dreamers that are here, and to those who are watching from home, this is your home, this is your home, and we see you and you are not alone."

"The President and I...are unequivocal that we recognize you for the Americans that you are, and that we recognize that you deserve all the rights that come with American citizenship."

Referring to last week's DACA federal court ruling she said that it "will not immediately impact current DACA recipients, also it will put hundreds of thousands of young immigrants in jeopardy. But our administration is taking action."

Notes that the DOJ announced its intention to appeal the decision, and DHS will propose a new rule concerning daca.

"The status quo of people living with uncertainty from one case to another is simply wrong" - particularly when we are talking about young people who are contributing to our society.

"We need Congress to finally create a pathway towards citizenship," she said, noting that she had spoken to Senator Durbin last night about the topic.

"We stand in solidarity on this issue - we will not give up."

"All people deserve to have the ability to make choices about their lives, unencumbered by other people's limited ability to understand who you are."

Diana Bautista, an 18 year-old DACA applicant then spoke virtually from LA. She described how her family has been living in the US for 17 years, but that President Trump ended DACA a month before she turned 15. She said that she wanted to become an immigration attorney while a high school student but made the difficult decision not to go into debt and pursue that route.

As she concluded her comments, she urged Congress to deal with immigration.

"You're right it needs to be done and it needs to be done now," said VP Harris.

The pool was led out of the room at approximately 12.32