10 FEBRUARY 9 - FEBRUARY 15, 2018 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP
Bay Ridge activists band together to call
for the passing of a clean Dream Act
BY MEAGHAN MCGOLDRICK
MMCGOLDRICK@BROOKLYNREPORTER.COM
A bevy of Bay Ridge and citywide
organizations banded
together on Monday, February
5 to urge Congressmember Dan
Donovan and Senator Chuck Schumer
to help pass a clean Dream Act before
Congress’ February 8 budget deadline.
The 2017 Dream Act is a bipartisan
legislative solution for over 2.1
million immigrant youth and young
adults who came to the
states as children but
have no pathway
to citizenship,
who had been
covered under
the Deferred
Action for
Ch i ld ho od
Arrivals (DACA)
program
begun under
President Barack
Obama and ended
last year by President
Scenes from a rally in support of Dreamers held on Monday, February 5.
Donald Trump.
The rally
– held at
the corner of
86th Street and
Fourth Avenue in
temperatures as low
as the mid-20s – was
hosted by the Arab American Association
of New York, Fight Back Bay Ridge,
Bay Ridge for Social Justice, South
Brooklyn Progressive Resistance and
the New York Immigration Coalition.
“It was incredible to see local residents
from Bay Ridge – a neighborhood
of immigrants – come together
and rally in support of protecting our
Dreamers,” said Andrew Gounardes,
a Bay Ridge resident and candidate for
the Democratic nomination to square
off against State Senator Marty Golden
in November. “Although the Dream
Act is being debated down in Washington,
the front lines of the fight to
make sure that children raised in this
country can stay in this country are
right here in our local community. We
need a clean Dream Act and we need
it now.”
Also in attendance at the rally was
Michael DeCillis, a Staten Island Democrat
hoping for a chance at Donovan’s
seat come Election Day. He was the
only potential Donovan opponent at
the gathering.
Local resident Teri Brennan shared
with this paper why she, too felt it was
important to attend Monday night’s
rally.
“The foundation of our country,
our very essence, is about finding
and making better lives. It has driven
every wave of immigration with people
fleeing hardship and/or seeking
opportunity,” she said. “My own Irish
ancestors were so poor that they lived
in the workhouses where parents and
children were separated. I am profoundly
grateful that they made their
way to America hundreds of years ago.
Photos courtesy of Teri Brennan
“My mother was born in 1918. She
used to say that she was not proud to
be American because it was not something
she had achieved. It was purely
an extremely fortunate accident of
birth,” she went on. “There is a lot to
be afraid of in this world right now.
Decent people seeking better lives for
themselves and their children are not
among them. I can’t imagine any good
parent who would not go to the ends
of the earth to get their own children
to a better place. None of us who got
here before are entitled to deny the
same opportunities to those who came
later. ‘Showing up’ for the vulnerable
is something we all should be doing,
in whatever way we are each able to
show up – rallies and demonstrations,
reaching out to elected officials, befriending
our neighbors, teaching our
kids to be empathetic. It all matters.”
The rally consisted of peaceful protest,
unifying chants and in-real-time
calls and postcard writing to elected
officials.
“I am thankful that our community
is one in which more and more people
are showing up,” Brennan said.