Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-CO), Chief Deputy Whip, said she would vote against the fourth consecutive stopgap spending bill for this fiscal year released by the Republican majority. This bill does not include a provision extending protections for people in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, additional funding to fight the opioid epidemic, an extension of lapsed federal support for community health centers, or disaster relief for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, among many other critical funding needs.
"It is legislative malpractice to pass repeated stopgap bills to fund the federal government for three or four weeks at a time," DeGette said. "But the bill now before us is made even worse by the GOP's political games that include punishing Dreamers, short-changing health care and all but abandoning Americans in need in the Caribbean.
"I have always supported DACA. The nearly 800,000 Dreamers in the United States, many of them in Colorado, must have lasting protection and a path to citizenship. Congress should pass the bipartisan DREAM Act without delay. We must provide relief for Dreamers via a vehicle that will quickly become law so these young men and women don't have to remain in a presidentially-imposed limbo."