HIGHLIGHT
New Trump rule blocks first-time applicants from filing paperwork
Maria Garcia was elated when the Supreme Court unexpectedly ruled in June that the Trump administration had improperly rescinded the Obama-era DACA program, essentially restoring the program to full effect and re-opening the door again to new applicants.
The ruling meant that 17-year-old Garcia, an undocumented dreamer from Mexico, could for the first time apply for deportation protection and a work permit through the Deferred Action for Arrivals program. She was too young to apply before Trump rescinded the program.
“I printed out the application” and was gathering paperwork, Garcia said. “I was really excited.”
But the door that was opened by the Supreme Court’s decision was
abruptly closed Tuesday when the Trump administration announced new rules that block first-time applicants such as Garcia from applying while still allowing current DACA recipients to renew.
Garcia was at her home in Phoenix when she read the news on social media.
“I did cry a little,” she said.
Garcia is among the 66,000 “dreamers” — undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. when they were children — who turned 15 after the Trump administration announced in September 2017 that it was rescinding the DACA program, arguing that the Obama administration created the program illegally. Since then, the program has only accepted renewal applications from dreamers who had already received DACA as legal challenges wound their way through the courts. The legal challenges ended with the Supreme Court’s divided 5-4 June 18 decision that the Trump administration’s attempt to terminate the program was “arbitrary and capricious.”
There are about 650,000 dreamers covered by the DACA program, including about 24,000 in Arizona.
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, a win for dreamers and a blow to the Trump administration, thousands of dreamers rushed to apply for DACA for the first time.
There are 500,000 undocumented dreamers eligible to apply for DACA but haven’t, because they weren’t yet eligible or for other reasons, according to Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute.
That number includes the 66,000 dreamers who became eligible after September 2017 by turning 15, the minimum age to apply, she said.
The new rules restricting the DACA program were announced Tuesday in a memo by Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf. Current DACA recipients will now have to reapply for renewal every year instead of every two years, which critics say will financially freeze out many DACA recipients from renewing by essentially doubling the $495 cost and paperwork of reapplying.
The Supreme Court’s ruling opened the door for DACA recipients to begin applying again to travel outside the U.S. through what is known as “advanced parole.” DACA recipients were able to apply for advanced parole before Trump tried to rescind the program in 2017. But Wolf ’s memo said the government will no longer process applications for advanced parole from DACA recipients, further limiting the program.
What is Trump administration trying to do?
The new DACA rules appear to be a political calculation by the Trump administration to slowly choke off the DACA program headed into the November election instead of attempting to kill the program all at once, Pierce said.
Trump initially indicated after the Supreme Court’s ruling that he would again attempt to rescind the program.
But doing so risks political fallout because polls have shown the DACA program is supported by a majority of Americans.
“So I do think this is the administration trying to end it but I think they are doing it more slowly than the president might have first indicated because they have realized the political stakes in this,” Pierce said. “This is an extremely popular program and doing so when the November election is right around the corner would be politically precarious for them.”
Pierce expects the new rules will face a legal challenge by advocacy groups.
If Trump ultimately rescinds the DACA entirely and is re-elected, it will be up to Congress to pass a legislative solution for dreamers, something it has been unable to do in two decades, Pierce said.
Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has vowed to make DACA permanent, while pushing for Congress to pass a legislative solution, Pierce said.
Wolf ’s memo was issued in response to a directive issued by a federal judge in Maryland last week that the Trump administration had to clarify the DACA program’s status after reports that the Department of Homeland Security was not processing applications, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, said Jorge Loweree, policy director at the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group. The Trump administration appears to be setting the ground work to rescind the DACA program in the future, Loweree said.
“They weren’t able to go all the way given the overall popularity of program and the support for the most sympathetic subgroup of immigrants in the U.S,” Loweree said.
Loweree said closing off the DACA program to first-time applicants is “highly arbitrary” and locks out the 66,000 dreamers who became eligible to apply by turning 15 but couldn’t after the Trump administration stopped accepting new applications in 2017 in rescinding the program.
“Because of that, there is a population of people who at some point didn’t qualify for the initiative but aged into it over time,” Loweree said. “The hope was that following the Supreme Court’s decision that population of people that is estimated to be in the range of 66,000 individuals across the country would then be eligible to apply and could do so if they wanted. That is no longer the case.”
Denying dreamers who turned 15 since 2017 the opportunity to apply for DACA is “callous,” said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, an advocacy organization
“It lacked absolute compassion and understanding of the lives that it impacts,” Salas said. “To deny them this program and to say somehow it doesn’t matter what happens to those young people I think is just disregarding the fact that each of these young people have their whole lived in this country and they can’t move forward.”
Dreamer: Feels like a ‘great prize ... was swatted away’
Garcia, the undocumented dreamer from Tempe, came to the U.S. when she was 4. Under current immigration laws, she has no way to legalize her status.
So without DACA, she said she will continue to live in fear that she could be deported.
After graduating with a 4.0 GPA from Tempe High School, Garcia plans to study aerospace engineering at Arizona State University this fall. But without
DACA, she also won’t be able to work legally to help pay for college.
And without a work permit, she doesn’t know if she will be able to use her degree once she graduates.
“So it does build up a lot of anxiety,” Garcia said.
Darian Benitez, a 17-year-old undocumented dreamer from Mexico, also was crushed by the Trump administration’s decision to no longer allow first time applicants to apply for DACA.
“It felt like you had this great prize within the reach of your hands and then when you reached for it it was swatted away,” he said.
Benitiz’s parents brought him to the U.S. from Guanajuato, Mexico, when he was four. But he has no recollection of his birth country.
The new restrictions mean he likely won’t be able to pursue his plans of attending a top-tier university on the East Coast to study engineering after graduating from Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix. He will be a senior this fall and is an A student.
Benitez said he has seen the reality between dreamers who have DACA and those who don’t. His long-term goal was to return to Phoenix after college and start his own business.
Now he questions whether he will be able to achieve it.
“I really needed an opportunity such as DACA,” which would have allowed him to obtain a work permit and travel freely throughout the U.S. without the fear of being apprehended by immigration authorities and deported, Benitez said.
Ximena Carmona, a 17-year-old dreamer originally from Mexico who lives in Tempe, graduated from Marcos Die Niza High School in May.
She planned to apply for DACA for the first time following the Supreme Court’s ruling in June, but now can’t.
Having DACA would have helped her pursue her goal of enrolling in college and studying nursing because she would have been able to get work permit, a driver’s license and a Social Security number.
Now her goal of studying nursing has been derailed. Colleges typically require nursing students to have a Social Security number, said Carmona, who has lived in the U.S. since she was 2.
“I was originally going to go to college to study nursing, but without DACA I can’t really do that,” Carmona said.
Now she’s not sure what she will do.