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DACA Recipients In Connecticut Urge Trump Administration To Preserve Program

CT-N
DACA recipient Yenimar Cortes addresses the media

People who benefit from the DACA program in Connecticut spoke out Wednesday about rumors that the Trump administration may end protection for undocumented residents who arrived as children. 

Donald Trump has given mixed signals about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals through his presidency. The Obama-era program allows people who were brought here as children to apply for two-year, renewable permits that protect them from deportation and allow them to work.

But now a deadline is looming for Trump.

Ten Republican governors are bringing a lawsuit against the federal government, and have given the administration until September 5 to rescind the program.

That could affect more than 5,000 people in Connecticut.

“For a lot of them, they’re the breadwinners of their family," said Lucas Codognolla, the executive director of Connecticut Students for a Dream. "Taking away someone’s opportunity to work not only has an impact on them individually, but also in just the status of their family.”

Codognolla was brought here as a child from Brazil. Connecticut Students for a Dream has fought to raise awareness of the plight of DACA recipients.

Yenimar Cortes came to the U.S. at the age of two from Mexico.

“DACA gave me an opportunity to receive a scholarship, the national scholarship," she said. "It gave me the opportunity to go to school and to actually think that I have a future. If DACA is taken away -- the Trump administration -- I tell them this, those 10 attorneys general that are behind this: you’re hurting real people.”

Governor Dannel Malloy this week signed on to a statement along with more than 1,000 other elected officials across the country, calling on the administration to preserve and strengthen DACA.

Harriet Jones is Managing Editor for Connecticut Public Radio, overseeing the coverage of daily stories from our busy newsroom.

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