One DACAde later
When the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was authorized by President Obama one decade ago tomorrow, the average recipient was 19, likely to have just graduated high school and suddenly facing a brighter future with protection from deportation, work authorization and all that flowed — higher education, legal and stable employment, a driver’s license, the respite of breathing a little easier when passing by a cop car or taking an interstate bus, and just maybe the promise of a permanent place in the country they’d long called home.
Ten years later, while appreciation for that initial executive move remains, the luster has faded. What was envisioned as a stopgap until Congress provided politically popular protections for people brought to the United States illegally as minors has become a frozen limbo for nearly 700,000 people.
The excitement of an initial application has withered to the nagging dread of filing yet another renewal, knowing something could always go wrong. Bright-eyed kids have long since graduated, starting families and careers, settling down into American life alongside their U.S.-born or naturalized peers, all with an ax hanging over their heads.
The policy is constantly mired in litigation either attempting to have it terminated or, during the Trump administration, attempting to preserve it, putting thousands of lives at the mercy of a judge’s order. It limps on, carrying a weight that it was never meant to bear this long. DACA was undoubtedly the right and moral thing to do, but it should never have been the only thing standing between hundreds of thousands of people, who are inarguably Americans, and exile.
It would take very little to ease this torment. A short bill could make Dreamers, including DACA recipients and others who’ve arrived since, eligible to apply for permanent residency. This would simply open up access to the process that about a million other noncitizens already go through every year. It would cost taxpayers fundamentally nothing (the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service is fee-funded) and lead to widespread economic benefits as this population could finally turn its full attention to living their best lives in the communities that they’ve long inhabited instead of the exhausting fear of arbitrary deportation that would help no one.
Most importantly, it is the just outcome. DACA recipients never had any real choice in having the United States as their home. A decade of political tug-of-war has painted them as everything but what they are: normal people who deserve stability. A decade is more than long enough.