To: Leslie Rutledge, Attorney General of Arkansas
Retract Your Request to Phase Out the DACA Program
As a resident of Arkansas, I ask that our Attorney General Leslie Rutledge retract her signature from the June 29, 2017, letter directed to Attorney General Sessions, which called on the non-renewal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Expanded DACA programs. I call on Attorney General Rutledge to meet with DACA recipients and their employers here in Arkansas and bear witness to the benefits that DACA has brought to the Natural State before pursuing additional action related to the future of this program. I do NOT agree with the position that Attorney General Rutledge has taken on behalf of us Arkansans, and insist she NOT waste my taxpayer dollars on a lawsuit against the President Trump Administration if they do not end the DACA program.
Why is this important?
I affirm that Arkansans stand WITH, not against, the approximately 8,000 Arkansan youth who have already received or will soon be eligible for DACA. The phasing out of the DACA program would have detrimental, negative effects on our communities as well as our Arkansas economy, which has benefited from the skills and talents of these bi-cultural, bi-literate individuals as well as the additional tax, consumption, loan and entrepreneurial/ innovation revenue that our DACAmented have brought to our state. Arkansas is a state that believes in enabling the potential of all its children, including our DREAMers, because when we hold back some of our youth, we hold back ALL of our youth. The Supreme Court has already ruled on the legality of the original 2012 DACA program, and I do not want to see our state or nation go down this road again. Arkansas WANTS to see DACA further renewed and expanded, NOT terminated.