USA TODAY International Edition
DREAMers on edge 5 years after gaining protections
‘ We are on high alert about what’s going to happen with our program’
Five years ago Thursday, President Obama announced the creation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to protect hundreds of thousands of “DREAMers,” undocumented immigrants brought to the USA as children, from deportation.
President Trump has allowed DACA to continue — at least for now. That has enraged critics of the program, who oppose any leniency for undocumented immigrants, and enrollees and applicants worry Trump will shut it down at any time.
“It’s a feeling of knowing there’s something in your hands that’s working, but at the same time, there’s a level of anxiety,” said Greisa Martinez, 28, a Mexican native and DACA enrollee who works for United We Dream, a coalition of young undocumented immigrants in Washington. “We are on high alert about what’s going to happen with our program.”
The program requires applicants to show they haven’t committed any serious crimes, have attended school or joined the mil- itary and arrived in the USA before they turned 16. If approved, they receive a two- year reprieve from deportation, a work permit and the opportunity to renew their DACA status if they stay out of trouble. More than 780,000 have been accepted, and most are on their second or third renewal.
Trump vowed throughout his presidential campaign to end the program, which he described as “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants and an abuse of Obama’s presidential powers.
“People were very much waiting with baited breath to see what happened,” said Michael Jarecki, an immigration attorney in Chicago. “The entire DACA community was afraid of the program being pulled.”
That led to a rush of applications while Obama was still in the White House. More than 114,000 people applied from October to December 2016, up 128% from the same period the year before.
After Trump took office, he allowed the program to continue, arguing that DREAMers represent a unique population who deserve to be treated “with heart.” That decision angered some supporters. Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA, a group that advocates for lower levels of immigration, said he hears member complaints every day about Trump’s failure to abolish DACA.
“We regard this as being a really clearly broken promise,” Beck said. “A lot of people say, ‘ He’s in a tough situation, it’s hard for him to make a lot of things happen.’ But this was an executive order, so he can stop it. You really can’t say that the courts or Congress or anybody else is in the way.”
Supporters of the program initially did not know what to make of Trump’s decision not to scrap DACA. Jarecki said his clients were all in a holding pattern but decided in early February the program would remain and they could resume their applications.
“I don’t know what happened, I don’t know what factor touched him, but I’m pleased to see that the program is continuing,” he said.
It’s not known how many applications have been approved during Trump’s presidency. U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said more than 124,000 applications were approved from January to March. That period included 20 days under Obama, and the agency did not say how many were approved while he was in office.
The Trump administration said enrollees still could be deported.