An activist is arrested in New York City during a rally urging a clean DACA law for “dreamers.” Legal battles and budget disputes are leaving millions of lives in upheaval.
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 Obamaera 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 immigration plan.
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.
DREAMers got their name from the DREAM Act, a bill that has been proposed in Congress since 2001 but never passed, that would protect that group of immigrants. The 3.6 million estimate of undocumented immigrants brought to the USA before their 18th birthday comes from the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit think tank that studies global immigration patterns. That is roughly a third of all undocumented immigrants in the country and does not include millions of their immediate family members who are U.S. citizens.
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.”
In exchange for DREAMer protections, Republicans want enhanced border security, the end of a diversity visa program for people from underrepresented countries, including several from Africa, and a reduction in relatives that U.S. citizens can sponsor for visas.
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.
To qualify for DACA, which was created in 2012, DREAMers had to have a thorough background check, prove they arrived in the United States before their 16th birthday, were 30 or younger, were attending school or in the military and had not committed a felony or serious misdemeanor. The program provided work permits and two-year reprieves from deportation that could be renewed.