Over 100 prominent CEOs and executives from around the country, including Apple's Tim Cook, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and AT&T's Randall Stephenson, wrote a letter to congressional leaders asking them to save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
The executives said ending the Obama-era legislation would translate into "an impending crisis for workforces across the country."
The letter, dated Jan. 10, asked that lawmakers pass a bill to support the so-called Dreamers, months after President Trump's administration announced DACA's would be history within six months.
"It is critical that Congress act to pass legislation before January 19th," the executives wrote in the letter.
They said that not only would the termination cause "a tremendous upheaval in the lives of DACA employees," but that not passing legislation in a prompt manner "will lead to businesses losing valuable talent, cause disruptions in the workforce and will result in significant costs."
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DACA is now set to expire on March 5.
The executives who signed the letter, including Mary Barra from GM, Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President and CEO of IBM and Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos, cited studies done by economists that a failure to act would result in the loss of $215 billion to the country's GDP.
The letter, first reported by The Hill, notes "that the overwhelming majority of the American public of all political backgrounds agrees that we should protect Dreamers from deportation."
On Monday, President Trump held a publicized, bipartisan meeting with lawmakers to discuss continuing protections for those who fell under the DACA program and broader immigration reform.
On Tuesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration’s decision to halt the program, as lawsuits play out in court.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup said lawyers in favor of DACA clearly demonstrated that young immigrants "were likely to suffer serious, irreparable harm" without court action.
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After the ruling, Trump blasted the decision on Twitter, calling America's court system "broken" and "unfair."
“It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning.
In September 2017, the Trump administration announced an “orderly wind down” of the Obama-era program, which gives a deportation reprieve to illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children – putting pressure on Congress to come up with a replacement.
“I do not favor punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognize that we are a nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws,” Trump said in September, explaining the decision.
Fox News' Brooke Singman and Kaitlyn Schallhorn contributed to this report. Follow Chris Ciaccia on Twitter @Chris_Ciaccia
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