New Mexico’s senators in Congress have joined two dozen others in an effort to protect the private information submitted by undocumented people who came to the U.S. as children in order to receive protection from deportation.
U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich on Thursday announced that he and U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, along with 24 other senators, have introduced the Protect DREAMer Confidentiality Act, which would prohibit the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security from divulging to immigration authorities information disclosed in someone’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) application.
“I call on Congress to quickly take up and pass my legislation to make sure Dreamers are able to stay in school, keep working and contribute to our economy, and remain in their homes and neighborhoods,” Heinrich said in a statement.
The bill would also block DHS from referring anyone with deferred enforcement protections under DACA to any law enforcement.
Under the legislation, DHS could still share the information with national security and police agencies in order to identify or prevent fraud, and to investigate felony crimes, as long as they aren’t related to the applicant’s immigration status or for “particularized national security purposes.”
Approximately 825,000 people have received protection from deportation under DACA since 2021, according to Heinrich’s office.
“We need to ensure that Dreamers’ private information is not weaponized against them and is protected — full stop,” Heinrich said.
In a news release, Heinrich’s office noted that DACA recipients have contributed an estimated $140 billion to the U.S. economy and $40 billion in federal, state and local taxes.
The bill’s introduction comes as the federal Internal Revenue Service is building a database of taxpayer records, including home addresses, to help ICE find and deport people, ProPublica reports. The Trump administration has also provided immigration authorities with Medicaid enrollees’ personal data.
Earlier this year, New Mexico enacted a new state law that prohibits the state Motor Vehicle Division employees from disclosing driver’s license data to any entity that would use it to enforce federal civil immigration laws, among other data protections.
“Dreamers in New Mexico and across the country are frontline health care workers, teachers, firefighters, police officers and scientists,” Heinrich said. “These inspiring young people are Americans in every sense of the word except on paper, and they want nothing more than to be productive members of their communities. Unfortunately, the Trump Administration doesn’t care about any of that and is indiscriminately sharing the private information of Dreamers.”
