A group of 95 members of Congress have written a letter to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, condemning the arrest of protected immigrants known as Dreamers and demanding to know how many have been detained and deported in recent months.
In a letter shared with the Guardian and submitted to Noem on Wednesday morning, Democratic representatives denounced the recent rise in the wrongful detention and deportation of immigrants residing in the US under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program.
The representatives’ letter is also addressed to Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the federal agency tasked with carrying out the Trump administration’s mass deportation program.
In the letter, co-written by House members Delia Ramirez of Illinois and Sylvia Garcia of Texas and backed up by the dozens of other signatories, the representatives condemned the “blatant disregard” of the protections afforded to people under Daca.
The members of Congress also included various examples of the detention and even deportation in the second Trump administration of Daca recipients, who are known as Dreamers after the Dream Act, legislation first introduced in 2001 to protect a large group of undocumented people who had been brought to the US as children.
The act has never passed despite being reintroduced in Congress many times, and instead the Daca scheme was introduced as a federal government program in 2012, under Barack Obama, to allow those who qualified the temporary but renewable right to live, study and work in America.
Earlier this year, a Trump administration official said that “illegal aliens who claim to be recipients of Daca are not automatically protected from deportations” and encouraged those in the program to leave the country.
“We condemn the … DHS and … Ice[’s] blatant disregard for the legal and humanitarian protections afforded to current beneficiaries of the Daca program,” the letter begins.
It later says that “despite clear protections”, several Dreamers “have been detained or deported by US immigration authorities”, raising “serious concerns” about due process, court orders and established practice.
The Guardian has submitted a request for comment to the DHS.
The letter highlights eight separate cases of Daca recipients being arrested by DHS officials. In one case from July, a deaf car wash worker was arrested by Ice during an immigration raid in California, despite his Daca status and valid work authorization.
In August, Catalina “Xochitl” Santiago, a Daca recipient and immigrant rights organizer in Texas, was detained by agents and later placed in Ice detention, while the government fights to deport her.
And in another instance, an unnamed man was arrested during a traffic stop and sent to the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center in the Florida Everglades known for its harsh conditions, despite his Daca status and valid driver’s license.
“These are only the cases brought to the public’s attention,” the letter reads. “Given the scale of immigration enforcement operations and the lack of transparency around DHS and Ice procedures under the current Trump administration, it is reasonable to believe that additional Daca recipients have been detained or deported.”
Other signatories include Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ro Khanna, Greg Casar, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Ritchie Torres, Summer Lee, Nydia Velázquez, Jamie Raskin, Ilhan Omar, Bennie Thompson and dozens more, representing states across the nation.
The representatives also requested information on the legal authority used by the administration to detain Daca recipients, details of the arrests and how the department is looking to address what they regard as wrongful arrests.
They said recent enforcement actions went against the spirit of Daca but “also disrupt families, harm communities, and inflict unnecessary social, emotional, and economic costs”.
Donald Trump tried to end the program during his first presidency, but was stopped by the US supreme court in 2020. The Department of Education earlier this year said it was investigating five universities for offering scholarships to Daca recipients.
In January, the fifth circuit court of appeals ruled that current Daca recipients remain protected and that the DHS should treat them as low priorities for deportation.
Daca recipients must renew their protection every two years and go through a vetting process to make sure they are still eligible. More than 500,000 Daca recipients currently live in the US, according to government data.
This year, a number of organizations released a survey of hundreds of Daca recipients – the 10th annual survey of its kind – and found high employment and school enrollment. The majority of those surveyed also expressed fear of deportation, including because of safety concerns in their countries of birth.
The representatives’ letter comes two days after Ramirez and Garcia co-wrote another letter to House leadership, encouraging them to co-sponsor the American Dream and Promise Act 2025, which would offer further protection for those with Daca and temporary protected status (TPS) and a “legislative pathway toward permanent status” in the US.
