A LOOK AT HOW THE DECISION TO CANCEL THE DREAMERS PROGRAM FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WHO CAME TO THE U.S. AS CHILDREN MEANS MANY COULD BE DEPORTED TO A COUNTRY THEY BARELY KNOW — CANADA.
Hundreds could be deported if program ends
From the Stars-and-Stripes flag on her desk to the way she spells colour — without a “u,” of course — Leezia Dhalla says she couldn’t feel more American.
She’s lived 21 of her 27 years south of the border, after all, and in the red-meat heartland of Texas, no less.
Yet a contentious decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to cancel the socalled Dreamers program for illegal immigrants who came to the States as children means Dhalla could soon be deported to a country she barely knows — Canada.
The heated debate around the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy has focused largely on Latin Americans, who make up most of the 800,000 it affects. But Dhalla, who at age six moved with her parents from Edmonton to San Antonio, is among a surprising 750 Canadian citizens registered under DACA and now facing a hazy future.
Canadian Dreamers won’t be forced back to a developing country plagued by violent crime, at least, but the prospect of uprooting lives forged in the U.S. is still chilling, Dhalla says.
“For me, 20 years is a lifetime … I don’t know anything else. I don’t know anything outside of the U.S.,” she says. “There’s a reason we are here and there’s a reason we have chosen to stay. I have a very deep sense of patriotism, and it’s not just about putting a sign on my lawn on the Fourth of July.”
Former president Barack Obama implemented the DACA program in 2012 — as it happened, on the day Dhalla graduated from Chicago’s Northwestern University.
It meant people who had come to the U.S. when they were 15 or younger — by no choice of their own — and had been in the country at least since June 2007 were legally able to work, attend school and not be deported.
Polls suggest most Americans are sympathetic with their plight. But critics say DACA is tantamount to an amnesty for law breakers, and an unconstitutional circumvention of Congress by the last administration. With 10 states promising legal challenges against the policy, Trump announced last month that he was ending it.
He also set up a six-month phase-out period, and suggested Congress bring in legislation allowing the Dreamers to stay.
The majority of DACA recipients — 548,000 — are Mexican, with Canada 27th among countries of origin, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services statistics.
There would certainly be no barrier to Canadian Dreamers returning to this country, if necessary. Anyone born in Canada — other than the children of diplomats — automatically becomes a Canadian citizen, said an Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada spokesman.
Whether they want to return is another matter.
Jason Finkelman, an Austin, Tex.-based immigration lawyer who has a handful of Canadian Dreamer clients, says most entered the U.S. on their parents’ work or study visas, then overstayed with their families and become undocumented.
Abandoning the country they consider home for Canada would be a “huge” dislocation, especially since many left when they were small children and have no close family or friends here, he said.
Short of Congress passing a law to replace DACA, however, they and other Dreamers now have few options, even with the strong support of the people they work for, said Finkelman.
“Every single one of my clients, whatever their nationalities, had their employer call me: ‘We love Mr. or Mrs. X, we’re willing to continue to sponsor them … to do whatever we can to retain this employee.’”
Dhalla’s story began with a flat housing market in Edmonton, which convinced her realtor father to buy a business in Texas in the mid1990s, then obtain a visa that allowed the family to follow him south.
Her childhood was marked by regular visits to the immigration lawyer, but attempts to get permanent residency floundered, partly because of red-tape errors: an employer who filed papers late, and another who sold his business before the Canadians’ application could be processed.
In her third year of college, Dhalla received a letter asking her to appear in immigration court — the first step toward deportation.
The DACA program — coming just as she finished her university journalism degree the next year — was “transformative.”
Dhalla says she found not just one but two jobs, started a business writing resumes for others and bought a house and car.
She now works in Washington, D.C., for FWD.us, the immigration-reform organization founded by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. She and two other Dreamers were even interviewed by Zuckerberg about the end of DACA in a Facebook Live video.
While Finkelman says his clients would just as soon keep a low profile, Dhalla is defiant.
“Dreamers are pretty resilient people. We are smart, we are American and just by virtue of being American we’re pretty tough,” she said. “(But) it feels like undocumented communities are being terrorized … To take all of that away from people, when they’re just trying to work, is absurd.”
FOR ME, 20 YEARS IS A LIFETIME … I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING OUTSIDE OF THE U.S.