A choice is something many people have but when you are just a child you have no say. People all around the world come to the United States because of a choice but kids don’t have the choice to stay or leave.
In the U.S. about 18.4 million children are immigrants and dreamers. Dreamers are immigrants who arrived in the United States at a young age. Many dreamers came to this country due to their parents and the risk of living in their countries. Under the Obama administration, DACA was made to give these children opportunities to have an education, and work, and prevent them from being deported.
DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. DACA was created by Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on June 15, 2012, under the Obama administration. This policy provided undocumented immigrants that came to the U.S. at a young age, work authorization, and protection from deportation. DACA has to be renewed every 2 years and does not grant permanent citizenship. DACA so far has provided around 832,881 young adults to work in the United States lawfully and to attend school.
Being in DACA prevented many undocumented immigrants from having a threat of deportation, due to this many were able to move up their socioeconomic status. Because of this program, the United States economy has also benefited and has increased.
On June 30, 2021, there were about 590,070 active DACA recipients; this number has decreased by 46,000 since December 30, 2020. Due to the status of DACA being in limbo since 2017, their regulations have changed. As of right now, the renewal process is 1 year and any new applications have not been processed.
Anyone who had not been in the United States before June 15, 2007, is not eligible to apply due to the policies of applying not updating in the last years. Not only that but there has been a new ruling regarding whether DACA is illegal or not which could cause this program to be at risk and in jeopardy of being stripped from many dreamers and recipients.
Ever since 2017, DACA has been in the Limbo and many DACA recipients are with the fear of being deported. This is because due to the legality of DACA many southern states have started filing suits and even suing DACA believing that what they are doing is considered unconstitutional.
These states are Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Kansas, Texas, Mississippi, and West Virginia. The overall argument against DACA is that it encourages illegal immigration, is considered unlawful/unconstitutional, and ultimately causes harm to the states. (It is considered unlawful because they believe that the president cannot make legislative policies through executive orders, but has to have the approval of Congress).
Due to all these issues in September 2023, federal judge Hanen from Texas ruled that President’s Obama immigration policy is considered unlawful. Nine states including Texas agreed with the ruling due to having filed a suit against DACA. Due to this new verdict, the judge directed the Biden administration to stop processing any new requests, and the Biden Administration appealed the decision to the Fifth Circuit of Court Appeals.
Depending on their ruling there is the possibility of the court stopping renewals and advance parole applications. However, there is a possibility this case could end up in the hands of the Supreme Court once again.
If you think about it this is a repetitive cycle that is not getting solved. The same problem is being brought up and many DACA recipients still don’t have the answers of whether they are safe or not. This is very cruel because they have to live in the constant fear of having such a great program taken away from them.
It is horrible to see that if the program were to be at risk of termination they would be at risk of deportation and DACA recipients already in the working field would be fired/forced out of their jobs.
DACA recipients’ situation should be talked more about and should be brought to the public eye. This is because not only is this program at risk but so are many of the people in this program. If this program were to be terminated completely what would happen to the other children arriving in the United States? Even though many can no longer apply for DACA because of the deadline, it still brings hope to future generations and the hope that this program can update once all the legal issues are solved.
