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Pennsylvania DACA recipient to be among Dr. Jill Biden's State of the Union guests [1]

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Date: 2023-02-07  

Colin Lopez has been a beneficiary of the popular and successful DACA program since 2015, “and has since graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from West Chester University of Pennsylvania,” the statement continued. “She is an advocate for comprehensive immigration reform and in 2021, Colin Lopez met with the president to share her experiences as a DACA recipient.”

The 2021 meeting marked just the second time since the program’s creation in 2012 that DACA beneficiaries met with a U.S. president in the Oval Office. “Our lives have been in limbo for far too long,” said Maria Praeli, one of six DACA recipients at the meeting. She noted that every day that goes by without relief for the undocumented population “is a day that hurts all of us.”

In his first address to Congress in April 2021, the president expressed support for legislation that had already passed the House with bipartisan votes, including one addressing undocumented youth. But 10 Senate Republicans refused to step forward to help Democrats overcome the Jim Crow filibuster.

Colin Lopez joining Dr. Biden for the speech falls in line with previous Democratic invitations, which only escalated following the anti-immigrant attacks of the Trump years.

Former First Lady Michelle Obama invited DACA recipient Cristian Avila in 2014, in a historic first. Following the Trump administration’s unlawful rescission of the DACA program in late 2017, Democratic lawmakers from all over the country invited affected individuals as their guests. "I am an American,” Aldo Solano said during a joint press conference with Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer. “I am an Oregonian and I'm fighting for my right to be here.”

Then-Senator Kamala Harris also invited UndocuBlack leader Denea Joseph, while New York Rep. Grace Meng invited the first-ever Dreamer Rhodes Scholar the next year. “Inviting Jin Park to Washington for the State of the Union will bring more attention to his plight,” Meng said at the time, “and show firsthand how President Trump’s un-American immigration policies are shattering the lives of DREAMers.”

While these invitations can be a time to show the best of us, others have taken it as a time to show the worst of themselves. Arizona’s Paul Gosar, who was censured and removed from committees after fantasizing about killing a Democratic colleague and also filmed a video for a white supremacist conference, in 2018 demanded that Capitol Police arrest any undocumented immigrants in attendance. “Of all the places where the Rule of Law needs to be enforced, it should be in the hallowed halls of Congress,” he claimed.

I bet he wasn’t saying that after pro-Trump extremists stormed the Capitol just a couple of years later. Anyway, Daily Kos will be providing live coverage of tonight’s State of the Union address. Make sure to join us.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/7/2151595/-Pennsylvania-DACA-recipient-to-be-among-Dr-Jill-Biden-s-State-of-the-Union-guests

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