Immigrants rush to file final DACA renewals by Thursday
Advocates urging Congress to find a legislative solution.
More than 100,000 young undocumented immigrants — nearly 69 percent of those eligible — have applied to renew their work permits ahead of a Thursday deadline set by President Trump as part of his decision to end President Obama’s signature deportation-relief program.
Despite pleas from advocates in hurricane-ravaged Texas and Florida, the federal government did not extend the deadline to accommodate immigrants in those areas who may have had difficulty gathering the necessary paperwork and $495 fee.
However, administration officials said Tuesday that they will accept late filings on a case-by-case basis from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which were devastated by Hurricane Maria.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program on Sept. 5 but gave immigrants whose two-year work permits would expire before March 5 the chance to renew them one last time.
As of Tuesday, 106,000 of the 154,000 immigrants eligible for renewals had applied, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Most, about 58,000, made their filings before Sessions announced the ending of the program.
Since S ept. 5, about 48,000 more DACA recipients have applied for renewals. More applications were expected to land this week aided by millions of dollars in donations to help pay the renewal fees.
There was a happy-hour fundraiser in Brooklyn and a bake sale in Texas. United We Dream, the country’s largest immigrant-youth-led organization, raised enough to help 1,367 people pay for their applications. In San Francisco, the nonprofit Mission Asset Fund raised $3.8 million and was still handing out checks to DACA applicants Tuesday.
“We’re trying to get as many as possible out,” said Tara Robinson, chief development officer for the organization, which has helped nearly 5,000 immigrants with their renewal applications in the past month.
Federal officials said they did not know what happened to the remaining 48,000 eli- gible DACA recipients who had not filed their renewal applications by Tuesday.
DACA transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, allowing them to work legally, attend college anddrive.
Trump, who says Obama did not have the power to create such a program, has challenged Congress to pass an immigration bill that would replace the program and allow the roughly 690,000 young people who have benefited from it to legally remain in the United States.
Bills are pending in the House and the Senate that would grant legal status to DACA beneficiaries. But a major sticking point is what concessions the Republican-controlled Congress and White House will demand.
If lawmakers cannot agree on a bill by March 5, DACA recipients’ work permits will expire at a rate of roughly 30,000 a month, leaving them unable to legally work and putting them — like all of the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants — at some risk of deportation.
On Monday, the White House said Trump “wants Congress to act and pass responsible immigration reform, which will include his priorities of massive border security and interior enforcement.” Trump said three weeks ago that he had struck a deal in principle with Democratic leaders, but Republican lawmakers said this week that nothing is set.
Young immigrants, meanwhile, are calling for a “clean” Dream Act, a bipartisan measure that would create a path to citizenship for a much larger group of immigrants who arrived as children, some 1.8 million people - with no enforcement strings attached.
Last week, scores of demonstrators held sit-ins at congressional offices in support of a legislative remedy. This week, a coalition of business and tech leaders is flying in more than 100 undocumented immigrants to lobby lawmakers.
Advocates said they are buoyed by polling that shows strong support for the DACA beneficiaries and others brought to the United States as children. They are also backed by hundreds of business and religious leaders and university presidents.
“It’s not that common that you see people like the pope and Warren Buffett weighing in on specific policy,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, a bipartisan advocacy group for the business and technology sector. “I am really confident that Congress is going to act because the consequences are so severe.”