DACA Recipient From Highland Park Will Attend State Of The Union

HIGHLAND PARK, NJ — Congressman Frank Pallone announced he will bring Esder Chong, a DACA recipient from Highland Park, NJ as his guest for the State of the Union Tuesday night.

Esder was brought to the United States by her parents when she was 6 years old. She attended Highland Park High School and is currently a sophomore at Rutgers University, Newark. Her parents came to the U.S. in 2005 on a work visa and it expired.

Pallone was a co-sponsor of the Dream Act passed by Obama, which gave Dreamers their nickname, and which offered a path to legal status to people who entered the United States before the age of 18, passed security checks and met other criteria, including enrolling in college. Trump ended DACA last September.

The clock is ticking on DACA recipients, as protections for so-called "Dreamers" like Chong will expire by March 5. The Trump White House proposed a deal last week that would give a path to citizenship to 1.8 million undocumented people in the U.S., including all the DACA recipients. In exchange, Trump wants $2.5 billion for his wall and other beef-ups to border security, and would severely limit the number of new immigrants allowed into the U.S. in return.

Democrats so far appear very unlikely to accept Trump's proposal.

A new proposal was just put forward Monday morning by a bi-partisan group in Congress that call themselves the Problem Solvers Caucus. U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, R-NY and U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-NJ, lead the caucus. As part of their deal, DACA recipients would have a 10- to 12-year pathway to citizenship, provided they have a clean criminal record and have paid taxes. It would give $1.6 billion for a wall and would end the diversity visa lottery but would not entirely end chain migration, which is a demand from the White House. Instead, it would create a new merit-based visa system for underrepresented countries.

It is not yet clear how the new bill will be received by the White House.

Pallone is a Democrat who represents New Jersey's sixth congressional district, and has been very critical of Trump on immigration reform.

“Esder is an outstanding scholar athlete who is an asset to her community and to her classmates,” said Pallone in a statement. “She is exactly the type of young person we should be encouraging and supporting, not deporting. New Jersey is Esder’s home and she shouldn’t live in fear because of partisanship and procrastination in Congress.”

Photo of Esder Chong provided by Rep. Pallone's office.