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SALT LAKE CITY — An advocacy group founded by the wife of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs launched a campaign Tuesday urging Sen. Orrin Hatch and Republicans to pass the Dream Act before the end of the year.
Emerson Collective in television and digital ads encourages people to call Hatch, R-Utah, and 16 other GOP members of Congress. Multibillionaire investor and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs runs the organization based in Palo Alto, California.
The TV ad features Democratic and Republican U.S. presidents voicing support for "Dreamers" and immigrants, concluding with, "Tell Sen. Hatch: It’s not enough to just say you support Dreamers. Pass the Dream Act. Now."
Also Tuesday, local immigration advocates delivered 10,500 butterfly cutouts representing “Dreamers” in Utah to Hatch's office in the federal building downtown.
Hatch backs a bill that would provide undocumented children a path to U.S. citizenship. He and two other GOP senators in September introduced the SUCCEED Act, or Solution for Undocumented Children through Careers, Employment, Education and Defending Our Nation.
The senator believes it’s a solution that recognizes the good “Dreamers” have contributed in their communities in Utah and around the country, said Hatch spokesman Matt Whitlock.
"Sen. Hatch is working with the White House and his Senate colleagues toward a solution that can pass in Congress and that the president will sign into law," Whitlock said.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which is set to expire next March, protects about 800,000 people from deportation nationwide.
There are about 10,500 people in Utah whose initial applications for protected status under the program have been approved, according to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Of that group, a little less than 7,500 have been granted their applications for renewal of that protected status.
