Uptick in applicants, but DACA faces legal battles
Once too afraid to apply, many see opportunity under new administration
For years, the fear of being deported kept Vanessa Rodríguez from applying to a federal program that would have protected her precisely from that worst-case scenario.
Now, however, she says her apprehensions are disappearing since President Joe Biden took office. She is finally applying for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program created in 2012 by the Barack Obama administration to protect from deportation young immigrants like her — who came to the country illegally when they were minors.
Rodríguez, 31, arrived in the U.S. from Mexico when she was 7 years old. The Houston area is the only place she has ever called home. It’s where she graduated from Alvin High School and where she had three American children of her own. But she feared giving information to the government in applying to DACA, particularly during the Donald Trump administration.
“I was scared because I have kids,” she said. “I didn’t know if they would know where we live and come and deport us.”
Lawyers and immigrant advo
cacy organizations in Houston and around the country have seen dramatic increases in new applications for DACA from immigrants like Rodríguez in the days since Trump left office. Although Biden signed an executive order to preserve the program on his first day in office, its future remains uncertain. A court challenge from Texas Republicans to eliminate DACA could be decided any day.
“We are getting twice as many people seeking help with DACA since Biden” became president, said Alain Cisneros, an organizer with FIEL Houston, the largest nonprofit of “dreamers” in the city. The name “Dreamers” comes from the the DREAM Act — Development, Relief, and Education for Immigrant Minors — which was introduced in Congress in 2001 to provide a permanent immigration status with a path to citizenship for them.
National organizations such as ImmigrationHelp.org, a nonprofit that helps immigrants apply for several programs free of charge, are also seeing an uptick.
“This new administration is much more accepting of DACA and immigrants, and I think that translates into less fear among them,” said Fernando Urbina, a Harvard University student and one of the founders of ImmigrationHelp.org
Under fire
The DACA program, renewable every two years, has been under fire since the Trump administration announced it was going to close in 2017. Trump’s administration argued that DACA is unlawful because Obama didn’t have the authority to implement a policy that should instead be established by congressional legislation. “Such an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws was an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive Branch,” said then Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Several challenges in court have kept it active for those who were already DACA holders, currently just over 640,000 nationwide, according to the latest data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Litigation reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in June last year that the Trump administration failed to provide a reasonable explanation for suspending the program. The administration allowed those already enrolled in DACA to renew, but continued banning new applications.
The door opened for first-timers on Dec. 7, after a federal court in New York ordered the government to restart the program in full.
“Their confidence in actually filing applications has definitely gone up since the inauguration,” said Jill Campbell, director of Immigration and Citizenship at BakerRipley, the largest charitable organization in Texas providing immigration and other services.
Young demographic
Many of the immigrants applying now for the first time are young people in their 20s and 30s who, like Rodríguez, were afraid to give their information to the authorities.
Others have aged into eligibility over the past three years. Approximately 61,000 eligible immigrants have reached the minimum age required to apply while the program was closed to first-timers, according to the National Immigration Forum.
Immigrants must meet several conditions to qualify: They have to have come to the U.S. before the age of 16, been in residence here continuously since 2007, and be under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012.
To be in the program, they also must be currently in school or have graduated with at least a GED.
The only state with more current DACA holders than Texas, with 105,000, is California, according to the USCIS. In Houston, 32,000 are active recipients but thousands more could benefit from applying now.
Possible setback
“People have been waiting to apply since (DACA) was halted and they are taking that step now,” said Gabriela Lopez-Compean, an attorney with the nonprofit Justice for our Neighbors in Houston that offers services to immigrants. “And people are very hopeful now that something can happen through Congress that could bring some sort of reform.”
Immigrants and organizations welcomed the introduction Thursday of a bipartisan immigration reform bill in the Senate to protect Dreamers.
The proposal filed by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, and Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, replicates those first introduced in 2001 and in the last two Congressional sessions. As presented, it would provide a path to citizenship for dreamers.
Biden’s call to find a permanent solution for dreamers has been enthusiastically welcomed by many of the potential beneficiaries, said Cisneros, from FIEL Houston.
“The excitement is mostly among the youngest dreamers, those who are now eligible for the first time,” he said, “because they haven’t gone through the disappointments and disillusionment in the past after the failure of several attempts” in Congress to pass reform.
While veteran dreamers recognize a fundamental change in White House approaches to immigration policies, they remain concerned about a looming decision in a federal court in Houston that could jeopardize the immediate future of dreamers if Congress doesn’t act swiftly.
The case to discontinue DACA, led by Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, was filed in 2018 with eight other states. A hearing on the case was held in Houston in December. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen is expected to announce his ruling at any time.
“After being demonized during the last four years, immigrants like me are feeling hopeful now with the new government,” said Leezia Dhalla, immigration press director with FWD.us, a nonprofit funded by tech and business moguls such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
But the looming federal court decision “could change the rules and dreamers could be back in limbo and at risk of deportation again if Congress doesn’t act.”