3.6M face immigration turmoil
End of DACA would affect far more than 800,000 DREAMers
The political debate over the fate of “DREAMers” — undocumented immigrants brought to the USA as children — has overlooked just how many there are in the country: about 3.6 million. ❚ That number of people whose lives are at risk of being uprooted is not widely known, in large part because so much public attention has
focused on 800,000 mostly young DREAMers accepted into the Obama- era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ( DACA) program.
This smaller group of DREAMers is in the spotlight because President Trump terminated DACA in September, saying it was an illegal overreach of executive authority that can come only from Congress, which is negotiating with Trump on a compromise.
Though many politicians use DREAMer and DACA interchangeably, the terms are “not a distinction without a difference,” said House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer, D- Md.
Ali Noorani, executive director of the pro- immigrant National Immigration Forum, said exposing millions of DREAMers to deportations would be a moral and economic calamity.
“At a time when our economy is growing and our labor market is extremely tight, these are all folks of working age who have skills to immediately contribute,” Noorani said.
“We would be spending billions of dollars to remove folks who have the potential to help the country grow.”
On the other side is Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Status, which favors lower levels of immigration. He argues for extending protections only for the 800,000 in DACA. “It’s not like they’re entitled to anything, but prudence suggests an extraordinary act of mercy,” he said. “Amnesty is warranted for them alone, at least this time.”
The impact of what may happen to DREAMers was highlighted this week when Jorge Garcia, 39, a Detroit landscaper who lived in the USA for 30 years, was deported to his native Mexico.
Garcia, whose wife and two children are U. S. citizens, did not qualify for DACA because he was just over the age limit.