DACA didn’t end, but DREAMERs anxious
Immigrants and allies march to push for law granting permanent protection
Monday was supposed to be the day that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program officially came to an end, terminating deportation protections for nearly 700,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children.
A Supreme Court ruling delayed that end date, possibly by as much as a year, but DACA enrollees still used Monday to push Congress and the White House to pass a law granting them permanent protection.
From Nevada to Capitol Hill to Trump Tower in New York City, immigrants and their allies held marches, rallies and prayer vigils to make sure their plight remains in the spotlight. Even though the Supreme Court bought them some time, that reprieve may be short-lived.
“When you are an immigrant you feel so alone, and it feels amazing to see people from so many communities support us,” said Nancy Canales, 18, of Seattle, who participated in a march in Washington, D.C., to support her undocumented siblings who could benefit from DACA.
Though many of the protests focused on Republican leaders in Congress and White House officials, some protesters targeted Democrats whom they accused of not pushing the issue hard enough.
A group of DACA recipients wore white wigs and hobbled around on canes outside the Democratic National Committee in Washington to highlight how long they’ve waited for Congress to pass the DREAM Act, a bill that would protect them that has repeatedly failed since it was introduced in 2001.
“The Democrats made the calculation to kick the can down the road and allow hundreds of thousands of us undocumented youth to live in uncertainty,” said Maria Duarte, a DACA enrollee who walked with others from New York to Washington to protest congressional inaction. “We are anxious, and we are scared of being torn away from (our) homes and our community.”
President Trump also took a shot at Democrats on Monday, tweeting, “It’s March 5th and the Democrats are nowhere to be found on DACA. Gave them 6 months, they just don’t care. Where are they? We are ready to make a deal!”
Republicans lead both chambers of Congress and haven’t passed any DACA-related bill.
A federal judge in California ruled in January that the Trump administration used flawed legal reasoning when it decided to end the Obama-era program. The judge ordered the government to continue processing DACA renewals. The Department of Justice made a rare, direct request to the Supreme Court to hear the case, but the court ruled last week that it must go through the regular appeals process.
That means the case goes back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in California, which is likely to rule this summer. The earliest the Supreme Court could accept that case would be in October, pushing a final ruling possibly into 2019.
The Department of Homeland Security must process DACA renewal applications during that time. That grace period allowed Congress to push a DACA bill to the back of the line, arguing that lawmakers no longer face the kind of pressure they faced as the March 5 deadline approached.
Though most DACA enrollees can breathe easy for the time being, there are thousands at risk of being deported because of the back-and-forth over the status of the program.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did not accept DACA renewals until Jan. 13 after the California judge’s ruling. That created a massive backlog of renewal applications, which can take three to five months to process.
A total of 13,090 DACA permits are set to expire in March, according to Citizenship and Immigration Services. An additional 5,320 DACA permits expire in April and nearly 14,000 more in May.
Tens of thousands of DACA enrollees could lose their protections while they wait for their renewals to go through.