Uncertain future for ‘Dreamers’ as deadline passes

washington — The hopes of hundreds of thousands of “Dreamers” were on hold on Monday as lawmakers missed an initial deadline for resolving the fate of immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme that shields nearly 700,000 of the immigrants from deportation was supposed to expire on March 5, six months after President Donald Trump announced he was ending it.

But a US District Court judge issued a nationwide injunction that requires the government to allow recipients to renew their permits to live and work in the country, and the US Supreme Court declined to accept the administration’s request to intervene. Both those developments have taken the pressure off lawmakers. With courts unlikely to rule definitively on the issue before summer, and the case expected to head to the Supreme Court after that, Congress is not expected to act before Election Day in November.

Lawmakers had every opportunity to legislate a fix, but the fate of Dreamers has proved too divisive for Congress to resolve.

Last month, Democrats essentially forced a brief government shutdown over the issue, demanding that the Senate’s Republican leaders set aside time to debate immigration.

They agreed, but despite one week of floor debate last month, the Senate failed to pass any of a series of proposals addressing Dreamers, and House Speaker Paul Ryan has not brought a legislative solution to the floor for a vote. —