July 21, 2026 – The bipartisan legislation would establish a permanent pathway to citizenship, grant conditional residency to Dreamers, and protect TPS and DED beneficiaries from deportation.
Media Contact: John Henry, jhenry@childrensdefense.org, CDF Media Relations Manager, 708-646-7679
AUSTIN, TX—Children’s Defense Fund and Children’s Defense Fund-Texas urge members of Congress to pass the bipartisan American Dream and Promise Act.
The legislation, introduced by U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) would provide a pathway to citizenship for “Dreamers,” immigrants brought to the United States as children. It offers several protections for young people and their families, including:
- Granting eligible Dreamers conditional permanent residence for 10 years and canceling their removal proceedings;
- Providing a pathway to citizenship for eligible Dreamers by granting them full Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) status;
- Providing individuals with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or Deferred Enforcement Departure (DED) with LPR status; and
- Protecting Dreamers and individuals with TPS or DED during their application for relief under the American Dream and Promise Act”
“It has never been more urgent to create pathways to citizenship to prevent family separations, detention, deportation, and the chronic stress and trauma of constantly fearing having one’s childhood and family uprooted,” said CDF-TX Senior Administrator of Policy and Advocacy Trudy Taylor Smith, Esq.
Read the Legislation: The American Dream and Promise Act
Children’s Defense Fund believes all young people deserve to grow up feeling a sense of safety and belonging in their families and communities; the American Dream and Promise Act moves us closer to this goal by creating pathways to citizenship that keep mixed-status families together and allow millions of immigrant parents and young people to pursue further education, work, and raise their families without fear of future deportation. This legislation can also help alleviate the trauma that families often experience when their loved ones are unjustly deported.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently allowed the Trump administration to proceed with terminating TPS for more than 350,000 Haitians and Syrians, a move that clears the way for nearly 1.3 million TPS holders across the country—including the parents of more than 260,000 U.S. citizen children—to potentially lose their lawful status and work authorization, placing them and their families at risk of hunger, housing instability, family separation, or deportation to countries where their lives are at risk. Roughly 300,000 U.S.-born children have at least one parent protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protected more than 495,000 Dreamers in the United States from deportation as of December 2025. DACA provides no permanent pathway to citizenship, recipients face mounting delays in renewing their required work permits, and DACA only covers a small fraction of the estimated population of as many as 3.6 million Dreamers who live in the United States. The program excludes anyone who is too young to have entered the U.S. by June 15, 2007.
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About Children’s Defense Fund
Founded in 1973, Children’s Defense Fund envisions a nation where marginalized children flourish, leaders prioritize their well-being, and communities wield the power to ensure they thrive. The only national, multi-issue advocacy organization working at the intersection of child well-being and racial justice, CDF advances the well-being of America’s most diverse generation, the 74 million children and youth under the age of 18 and 30 million young adults under the age of 25. CDF’s grassroots movements in marginalized communities build power for child-centered public policy, informed by racial equity and the lived experience of children and youth. Its renowned CDF Freedom Schools® program is conducted in nearly 100 cities across 30 states and territories. Learn more at www.childrensdefense.org.