Anxious young ‘dreamers’ await Trump decision
Trump will say Tuesday whether he’ll keep pledge to kill program
The country’s “dreamers” — immigrants who were brought to the United States as children — found relief during the Obama administration when they successfully pushed for a program that would defer deportations.
Since President Donald Trump’s election last fall, however, dreamers have been on edge, wondering whether the program will end.
That fear has intensified as Trump considers the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. A White House announcement is planned for Tuesday.
Leezia Dhalla is spending her days glued to the news, anxiously waiting for President Trump finally to announce whether he will kill the program that has protected her and nearly 800,000 other young undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Trump is considering ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which allows DREAMers — immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children — to remain.
After weeks of speculation over the future of the program, Trump told reporters Friday that “we love the DREAMers” and will announce a decision “sometime over the weekend ... probably Sunday, Saturday. The latest will be Monday.”
A short time later, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the announcement would come Tuesday.
That leaves DACA enrollees terrified heading into what should have been an enjoyable Labor Day weekend.
Dhalla, 27, legally entered the U.S. from Canada with her family when she was 6, but they lost their legal status. After being approved for DACA in 2012,
Dhalla has been able to buy a home, purchase a car and work at different jobs. Now, with the future of her status unclear, she doesn’t know what to think.
“Many of us are having that moment where our life is flashing before our eyes,” said Dhalla, a communications associate at FWD.us, an advocacy group founded by technology leaders that include Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. “I’m leaving tomorrow to go to Kentucky to my best friend’s wedding. Is this the last wedding in the United States I’ll get to go to?”
The DACA program, which Trump inherited from President Barack Obama, grants two-year stays for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States before their 16th birthday who have attended school or joined the military and have not committed any serious crimes. It also grants them work permits.
Trump faces a Tuesday deadline imposed by Republican leaders in nine states. The group, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, has grown impatient with the president’s decision to leave DACA in place through his first seven months in office after vowing to end it during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The group used a lawsuit to block a broader program created by Obama to protect up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. If he doesn’t phase out DACA by Tuesday, they have threatened to sue the administration to kill it.
“The DACA amnesty that President Obama initiated orders (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents to break the law, it also violates two other federal laws, and the constitutional separation of powers,” Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas and Trump adviser, told MSNBC on Friday.
Expectations of an imminent decision by Trump have prompted a public outcry by DACA supporters, including law professors who say the program is legal, Democratic governors who say DREAMers have helped their states, faith leaders who call DACA a moral imperative, and technology leaders who praise the DREAMers’ contributions to the U.S. economy.
“If the Trump administration ends DACA, it’ll be one of the most disgraceful, cruel and heartless decisions in modern American politics,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a group that advocates for immigrants in the U.S.
A surprise voice entered the fray on Friday when one of the Republicans threatening to sue the Trump administration had a change of heart. Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery wrote a letter to the state’s two senators saying he could no longer support the lawsuit because of the “human element” involved.
“Many of the DACA recipients, some of whose records I reviewed, have outstanding accomplishments and laudable ambitions, which if achieved, will be of great benefit and service to our country,” Slatery wrote.
Some Republican leaders in Congress are pleading with Trump to hold off on his decision to give them time to pass legislation that would let DREAMers stay permanently.
“These are kids who know no other country, who were brought here by their parents and don’t know another home,” House Speaker Paul Ryan told WCLO radio in Janesville, Wis., his hometown.
The loudest pleas have come from the DREAMers themselves.
“No matter what happens today or tomorrow or the next day, we continue to fight for our people,” said Oscar Hernandez, a DACA enrollee brought to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 2. “When immigrant communities come under attack, we rise up, we fight back and we win.”