Senator Angus King has joined two dozen Senate colleagues in supporting the Protect DREAMer Confidentiality Act, a bill aimed at ensuring that personal and sensitive data submitted by DACA applicants cannot be used by immigration enforcement agencies.
According to a press release from the Senator, the new bill would bar the Department of Homeland Security, and subsequently ICE and CBP from accessing personal information like tax and health records, except in serious cases involving felony crime, fraud and national security.
This bill is in response to recent measures taken by the Trump administration in which they authorized data sharing between the Department of Health and Human Services and DHS, granting ICE access to information on millions of Medicaid recipients, some of who are undocumented immigrants.
“Dreamers are productive, established members of our community woven into the fabric of our lives,” King said in the release. “They go to school, work at the local store, and contribute honestly to American society no matter the passport they hold. The Protect DREAMer Confidentiality Act would allow thousands of law-abiding Dreamers to continue living their lives and making contributions to society without fear of their personal information being misused.”
Politician’s from all over New England, including Vermont’s Senator, Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator, Edward Markey, are also supporting the bill. President Trump has not made a statement regarding the bill.
