Response to President Obama’s immigration decision

Hector Villagra, ACLU/SC Executive Director:
It is fitting that today the federal government should announce an order preventing DREAM Act-eligible undocumented immigrants from being deported.
Thirty years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a state law prohibiting undocumented children from receiving a free public education. The Court recognized the unfairness and irrationality of punishing innocent children who are here through no fault of their own by denying them an education. Today, the administration takes an important step in making our treatment of undocumented children more fair and sensible, recognizing that innocent children who have been raised and schooled here, and who have never known any other home, deserve the opportunity to live without fear and work legally, and that as committed and capable as they are, they stand ready to make great contributions to the country they love.
These children, however, deserve more than a temporary, stop-gap solution, as the President recognized. Congress must take up the challenge to pass the DREAM Act.