DACA Deadline Passed Pt 1
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. The March 5th deadline for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, has passed. That allows for the renewal of existing DACA permits while the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reviews the president's decision to phase out the program.Representative Dan Newhouse says it's unclear what will happen next or when ...
NEWHOUSE ... "Now that the courts are engaged in this in a couple of different ways, the decision by a court to require the administration to continue processing DACA renewals kind of takes away some of the urgency, unfortunately, of passing a legislative solution. And so, the March 5th deadline came and went and we still haven't gotten this completed.
The Sunnyside Republican says this puts some 18,000 DACA recipients in Washington state in limbo ...
NEWHOUSE ... "You know we have a lot of these young people in Central Washington. Many of them are attending school. They've served in the military. They are business people. They're doing a lot to improve our communities and I think that most people would agree that we need to do something to give them more certainty in their lives."
Newhouse says it's far from what you'd call a perfect situation ...
NEWHOUSE ... "it's frustrating, not just to people here, but the people who this impacts directly, the DACA recipients themselves."
Listen tomorrow for more on what, if any, progress is being made on a solution to the DACA problems and how it impacts Washington's ag industry in the midst of a labor shortage.