Statuses shakier, ‘dreamers’ in state strain to see ahead
Saving money, finishing school now urgent, but it’s unsettled beyond that
Confronted with an end date to a federal program that has shielded illegal immigrants from deportation, socalled dreamers said Tuesday that they will try to squeeze all they can from the perks before the program disappears.
In interviews, they spoke of rushing to finish classwork and save money, to weave a “safety net” in the event that U.S. lawmakers don’t come to their aid before their work permits, driver’s licenses and protection from deportation expire. When looking beyond individual expiration dates, however, their plans are a little more muddled.
“I don’t think anybody actually has a plan,” said 28-year-old Ruben Osorio, who has applied for renewal of his deferred-deportation status, which expires in January. “I think everybody keeps hoping that something else is
going to happen.”
As with their arrival to the United States — as children of people not authorized to live in the country — the beneficiaries of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals have little control over what comes next.
President Donald Trump’s administration shifted responsibility to Congress to address the matter. President Barack Obama’s administration in 2012 created the program by executive action after the so-called DREAM Act, which would have provided legal status for young illegal immigrants, failed to emerge from Congress.
Still, that proposed law gave the name “dreamers” to those with deferred status, who now number nearly 800,000 people nationwide and roughly 5,100 in Arkansas, according to federal data.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who on Tuesday announced the program’s end, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals “an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws” that is “vulnerable to the same legal and constitutional challenges” that ended a separate Obama-era program for illegal-alien parents of lawful U.S. residents.
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge in June joined a multistate group of attorneys general — and one governor — in urging Trump to announce an end to the program by Tuesday or face a legal challenge similar to the one that prevailed regarding the other program, called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Permanent Legal Residents.
Acting U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke said in a memorandum that the department will process no new initial applications for deferred status. The department will decide on a case-by-case basis whether to grant two-year renewals for people whose status expires before March 5, but will stop accepting those applications Oct. 5.
Beginning March 6, people without renewals will start losing deferred status as their current two-year permits expire.
The Arkansas United Community Coalition, which advocates for and assists immigrants, will hold a second round of forums this evening across the state for people with deferred status.
The group Monday evening provided mental health counselors at forums in Fort Smith and Springdale, with the counselors discussing how to deal with trauma and offering oneon-one sessions, said Mireya Reith, the coalition’s executive director.
Deferred-status recipients in Arkansas will fast for 24 hours starting at 7 p.m. today in solidarity with a hunger strike this week by dreamers in Washington, D.C., including some from Northwest Arkansas. They also plan to engage federal lawmakers with hopes of forging a legislative replacement to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, said Maria Meneses, an Arkansas United organizer.
The program grants twoyear work permits and deferred-removal status to immigrants without lawful status who arrived in the United States before their 16th birthdays. Applicants must meet education requirements, pass criminal background checks and have lived continuously in the country since June 2007.
People who receive the status aren’t granted citizenship — so they can’t vote — or other lawful residency status. They must pay state and federal income taxes and are not eligible for any federal benefits, such as financial aid for college, Meneses said.
Osorio, originally from Puebla, Mexico, was 10 when he crossed the border as part of a 20-person group. He remembers a lot of walking and running and a night when the entire group stayed in one motel room — how they huddled in the bathroom to hide when housekeeping knocked on the door.
“Don’t make noises,” Osorio remembers being told on the trip. “Hide from the helicopters.”
He’s now a restaurant manager at a Hilton Garden Inn and hopes to move up in the ranks in the hospitality industry, he said. Osorio doesn’t know what he’ll do if his deferred status isn’t renewed, but he hopes not to go back to Mexico, where he’d be thrust into “all these customs you’ve only seen on TV.”
“My hometown is Arkansas,” he said. “My first hometown is from Mexico, but if anyone asks, ‘Where are you from,’ I’m like, ‘From Arkansas.’”
Mariana and Omar Oropeza, 19- and 20-year-old siblings who live in Little Rock, cannot apply for deferred-status renewal under the current Homeland Security Department guidelines. Their deferred status expires in fall 2018.
By then, they hope to complete their trade studies at the Little Rock Job Corps Center to give them skills to build on, but looking ahead they worry about the little things, like transportation. Mariana said she often chauffeurs her parents, who do not have driver’s licenses.
“If they take it away, we’re going to go back to everyone being at risk of getting stopped and deported,” Mariana Oropeza said regarding her driving privileges.
Drew Devenport, a Springdale-based immigration attorney who has represented 164 deferred-status clients, said his office is making a list of who is eligible for a renewal before the October application deadline and March 2018 cutoff.
As work permits begin expiring, it’s possible that immigrants without legal status will try to find jobs “off the books,” which was the case in the leadup to the Obama program, he said.
“That opens them up and us, as a society as a whole, to individuals who will try to prey on them and take advantage of that,” Devenport said.
Mishell Quintero, who moved to Springdale from Mexico City when she was 7, obtained deferred status in 2013 and immediately began to work. She got a job, built up a credit history and last year bought a home she shares with her parents and younger sister.
It was the first time the family, which lived in an apartment complex and then a duplex, had more than two bedrooms since they moved to the United States in 2002.
“I shared a room with my sister forever,” said Quintero, 22, a certified nursing assistant who has an associate’s degree in social work.
Quintero paused her studies this year — she wants a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville — because she can’t afford tuition without saving money, she said. She didn’t want anyone to cosign a student loan because that person would be saddled with the debt should deferred action end and Quintero be deported, she said.
Now she and her younger sister, who is in high school and has a part-time job, are focused on saving money. Their deferred status will expire in early 2019 without a legislative fix.
“We’re going to keep working and saving money just in case — worst-case scenario — we have to move back to Mexico for some reason,” Quintero said. “I feel like it’s going to be a little bit of a safety net. If worse comes to worse, we’re going to have to move back to Mexico. We’ll have a little bit of money there. It’s all up in the air now. It’s not a definite plan.”