House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) suggested Tuesday that Republicans want to put "Dreamers" in internment camps while speaking at a press conference.
Pelosi joined the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus to praise Dreamers, young immigrants who were brought illegally to the U.S. as children, for "advancing the American dream with their courage and their optimism and their inspiration." She thanked the lawmakers present for being there before she warned that Dreamers may face the same fate as Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II.
"A week and a half ago, I was in Chicago, and I saw this art exhibit that I was invited to see. It's called 'And then they came for me,' and it's about the internment of the Japanese-American patriots in our country who were interned into camps during World War II while their family members were fighting for freedom for America and for the world in World War II," Pelosi said.
"And now they're coming for the Dreamers," she continued. "This is something—we owe these Dreamers for their patriotism, their courage, their optimism to come forward, but it's about America too."
Pelosi added that the Dreamers are the "manifestation" of the fight for "who we are as a country."
"We cannot let them come for them, so while the president thinks that giving six months time for Congress to act, we want to do that sooner. We want to do it within six weeks and hopefully we can by supporting the Dream Act that is in the House and the Senate," Pelosi said.
Pelosi said last Thursday that President Donald Trump told her on separate occasions he would sign a bill to "give legal status to young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children," HuffPost reported:
"We made it very clear in the course of the conversation that the priority was to pass the Dream Act," Pelosi said at a press briefing. "Obviously it has to be bipartisan. The president supports that, he would sign it. But we have to get it passed."
Democrats are pushing for the bill, called the Dream Act, after Trump rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program earlier this week. So-called Dreamers who received two-year work permits and deportation protections will begin to lose them in six months unless Congress steps in to act.