President Donald Trump is delivering his first State of the Union speech on Tuesday – but many Democrats in the House and Senate have found a pointed way to register their opposition.
U.S. Congressman David Price, a Democrat from Chapel Hill, has announced he’s bringing a local DACA recipient as his guest. Price is not alone: many Democratic House and Senate members will be doing the same thing. (Several others have announced they’ll be skipping the speech altogether.)
Rep. Price’s guest will be America Jimenez, a high school teacher in Raleigh. Jimenez was brought to the US at the age of two and she’s been living in America ever since. Former President Obama instituted the DACA program in 2012, allowing Jimenez to obtain her teaching certification after finishing grad school.
“DACA” is short for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – an executive order signed in 2012 protecting undocumented residents from deportation if they’d been brought to the US before the age of 16. There are now about 740,000 DACA recipients (commonly known as “Dreamers”) nationwide, but the program is in jeopardy: last fall, President Trump rescinded the program effective this March, and Congress is currently scrambling to pass a bill to enshrine the program in law and protect the “Dreamers.”
Said Rep. Price in a statement:
“I’m honored to be joined by America at this year’s State of the Union address. Her passion for giving back to the community where she grew up is a testament to the story of many Dreamers in our community and our country. Despite the persistent uncertainty and fear created by her immigration status, America persevered to graduate high school, college, and graduate school. Then, because of the DACA program, she was able to became a certified ESL teacher, filling a crucial need in our state and serving an often overlooked student population. Her success is one of many inspiring stories of Dreamers who came to America as children and have made incalculable contributions to the only nation they have ever known.”
The State of the Union address is slated to begin Tuesday at 9 pm.
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