Republican U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani said immigrants with protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program “deserve a shot at the American Dream,” after a brief question-and-answer session with media in Tucson on Friday.
Ciscomani, who represents Arizona’s 6th congressional district, said he was one of three Republicans who supported recent legislation allowing DACA recipients to work on Capitol Hill and in federal agencies. He made the comment as he walked back to his vehicle after taking three questions from local media.
“I’ve been very consistent on those two bills on supporting the efforts that we can do through the Appropriations Committee, which is not solving the issue, but I’m going to take any opportunity that we have to really look at this and be able to fix something for our DACA recipients,” he said after the event, held in a dirt lot across the street from the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector headquarters.
Ciscomani didn’t give a yes-or-no response when asked if he still supported a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, an idea he has supported as recently as May, shortly before U.S. immigration officials began targeting DACA recipients for arrest this summer.
In response, Ciscomani again pointed to his support of education and work opportunities for DACA recipients.
“This is part of the process on that. It is to allow them to, for example, be able to go to our schools, right, our universities, and also be able to work on this. So these are votes and opportunities that have been taken. We need a broader effort on this, but I’ve been very clear on this, that our DACA students deserve a shot at the American Dream, and we need to do all that we can to be able to” do that, he said.
The Star also asked if Ciscomani agreed with the Department of Homeland Security’s recent arrests of DACA recipients across the U.S., but Ciscomani did not reply before closing his vehicle door.
In public statements DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin has urged DACA recipients to “self-deport,” claiming people with DACA protections don’t have automatic protection from deportation.
Dozens of legislators, including Arizona’s Democratic U.S. Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, sent a letter to DHS this week, demanding answers about what they call the administration’s “illegal” arrests of DACA recipients and objecting to McLaughlin’s “puzzling” statements on the program.
In response to a follow-up email Friday, a Ciscomani spokesperson did not respond to the Star’s question about DACA arrests but said, in part, “The Congressman is in favor of a permanent solution that gives DACA recipients a shot at the American Dream.”
Ciscomani is in Arizona this week with a bipartisan group of six members of Congress’ “Problem Solvers Caucus” for a visit focused on border security, trade and commerce, and immigration.
U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-AZ, center, speaks Friday to the media alongside a bipartisan group of legislators from the “Problem Solvers Caucus,” as a part of an Arizona visit focused on the border, immigration and trade. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), left, and Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) stand behind Ciscomani.
The Congress members emphasized the need for bipartisan solutions on immigration and border security, but didn’t announce any plans or legislation on Friday.
The group met with the Border Patrol union on Thursday and on Friday morning met with stakeholders including ranchers, Cochise County law enforcement and border agents. The lawmakers received a briefing Friday at Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector Headquarters, at Golf Links and South Swan Road, and were then headed to visit the southern border in Nogales.
In comments to reporters Friday, the lawmakers decried organized crime groups’ exploitation of asylum seekers and migrants. But experts and human rights advocates say Congress’ decades of inaction on immigration reform, and restrictive immigration policies, have helped criminal groups thrive, as the lack of legal paths to immigrate drives the demand for human smugglers.
Congress recently approved more than $170 billion in funding for border security and immigration enforcement, including $45 billion for immigration detention centers.
The “Big Beautiful Bill,” supported by Ciscomani and all but two House Republicans, will result in “a lopsided, enforcement-only machine” that mostly enriches private-prison firms, said an analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute.
“The law substantially increases funds for deportations without providing any money to make the system more fair or functional,” the analysis said.
For years experts have called for comprehensive immigration reform to modernize and adequately fund the U.S. immigration system, including more immigration judges, asylum officers, staff to process legal immigration applications and work visas to help meet U.S. labor demands.
Advocates say the Trump administration is moving in the opposite direction, firing immigration judges, shutting down legal pathways for asylum seekers and revoking the legal status of immigrants who entered the U.S. with permission at ports of entry.
In early 2024, Republicans rejected a bipartisan immigration reform bill, co-authored by then-Sen. Krysten Sinema, I-Arizona, after then-candidate Donald Trump urged legislators to reject the bill.
Ciscomani said Friday that previous efforts at immigration reform have failed because they tried to do too much.
“It hasn’t happened in recent history, because they try to cover so much that they end up chipping off support everywhere and it ends up going nowhere at the end of the day,” Ciscomani said. “What we’re here to do is offer specific solutions to specific challenges and issues that we have, that we can actually get behind and support and pass.”
