THE “DREAMERS” of Florida face an uncertain future as the U.S. awaits the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Some 74,300 Florida residents could face deportation within two years if President Donald Trump ends the program that protects them from deportation.
Trump said Friday that he would announce Tuesday whether he will end the Obamaera program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Recipients, who arrived in the country illegally as children, are often referred to as Dreamers.
The president is widely expected to end the program by allowing current two-year work permits to expire without permitting renewals.
“We love the Dreamers, we love everybody,” Trump said in declaring his intentions.
But Elizabeth Betancourt isn’t feeling the love. Now 20 and a student at Broward College, she came to the United States at 2 years old. She’s never been back to Mexico.
“It is worrying me because I really don’t know what the future holds if it does end,” Betancourt said. “If it expires, there’s nothing else I can really do. I have to go back. I don’t really want to.”
She applied to be in the DACA program in 2012, not long after it was created by executive order during the Obama administration. With those protections in place, she was able to enroll in college to fulfill her dream of being a nurse, a dream inspired on a visit to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach to visit her newborn cousins. The twins were between 1 and 2 pounds at birth.
“I fell in love with all the technology and the people that were keeping them alive,” Betancourt said.
Now, she faces an uncertain future, one that could involve a new life in a country she does not know.
“I just have to work out a plan to see what I could do,” Betancourt said. “Possibly go back to [Mexico] and see what I can do there.”
Trump faced a Sept. 5 deadline to end DACA as officials from 10 states — but not Florida — said they would challenge the program, which grants temporary protection from deportation. To qualify, people must have arrived in the country before turning 16 and must have been 30 or younger by June 2012, when the program went into effect. Anyone who entered the country after that date is ineligible.
The Migration Policy Institute estimates that 92,000 Floridians could qualify for relief under DACA.
According to the latest report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services, 74,321 Floridians had been approved for DACA relief through the end of March 2017.
A wide array of elected officials have urged Trump not to end the program, including Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch and a multitude of Democrats.
Congress has already moved to bring back the DREAM Act, which would codify the DACA program into law. A Senate bill was filed in July by Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. But the bill has been filed in multiple congressional sessions and has never gained the required 60 votes needed to end a Republican filibuster.
Trump had to make a decision on the program’s future by Sept. 5, a deadline that goes back to a letter sent to the Department of Homeland Security on June 29. In it, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called on the Trump administration to end DACA by Sept. 5 or face a lawsuit.
A similar Obama-era program, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, has already been struck down by the courts, which ruled that deferred action programs are a violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act. That ruling made DACA unlikely to survive a court challenge.
In a statement released Friday evening, Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he disagreed with President Barack Obama’s decision to create the program by executive order, but that Congress needs to act to protect Dreamers.
“I do not favor punishing children for the actions of their parents,” he said. “These kids must be allowed to pursue the American Dream, and Congress must act on this immediately.”