If DACA ends, ICE has a list of names, addresses and workplaces
Persons who connected with the controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA program relinquished personal details that could help with their potential deportation.
These so-called “Dreamers” will know whether to leave, hide or continue improved lives on U.S. soil on Tuesday when President Donald Trump delivers his DACA decision.
“Most Dreamers came forward and registered with the government. They came out of the shadows, so to speak, gave up their addresses and fingerprints,” explained Adriana Abizadeh, executive director of the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
“If President (Donald) Trump were to end DACA, Dreamers would be at risk. The government has most of their personal information: where they live and work. The government knows where to find most of these people.”
The 2012 President Barack Obama immigration action allows undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors to apply for two-year work permits and protects them from deportation.
The President Trump decision will affect an estimated 800,000 DACA registrars, plus, impact their families, friends and employers. Abizadeh said Dreamers have lived in uncertainty since Trump promised an elimination of the Obama immigration effort.
“President Trump has engaged in mental warfare. It’s unfair that DACA recipients should have to live with this fear,” Laura Mora, a LALDEF employee said.
“But we wait and pray for a decision that supports the Dreamers.”
Trump owns several options including one that allows the approximately 800,000 Dreamers to stay until their two-year status expires.
Trump could continue the DACA program, a highly unlikely scenario considering his campaign promise and his seemingly personal agenda to obliterate any perceived Obama success.
Trump has pressed for ending Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act but failed on several attempts.
Trump has set the U.S. on course in 202O to step away from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, a top priority during Obama’s two-term presidency.
The Trump D-Day announcement comes with political ramifications as a late Republican full-court press has asked the president to continue DACA.
Anti-immigrants hardliners have promised a court fight should Trump extend the program.
Abizadeh confessed suspense. The LALDEF exec desires a permanent but solution to the U.S. immigration issue.
“We want a decision but we don’t want DACA to be used as a bargaining chip to move forward Trump’s budget, to build a wall or to hire 10,000 more immigration agents,” Abizadeh explained.
“And we don’t want to find ourselves in this predicament every two years. We want inclusive reform that seeks to meet the needs of all immigrants here.”