A decade ago, President Obama signed an executive order instituting The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program, which protects undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as minors. This program acknowledges that the beneficiaries have been raised in the United States and “pledge allegiance to our flag. They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one - on paper.” The program was a temporary solution which does not provide a pathway to permanent residency or citizenship in the United States. Instead, it was intended as a “stopgap measure to protect some of the nation’s most vulnerable immigrants”, known as Dreamers, from deportation. The program also enabled beneficiaries to obtain work authorization and reside legally in the US in two-year intervals. DACA was created as a temporary measure until Congress passed new immigration legislation addressing the immigration status of certain undocumented minors.
To qualify for DACA, participants had to have been present in the United States since 2007, have arrived before turning sixteen, and be under the age of thirty-one as of 2012, in addition to meeting educational and criminal history requirements. Since taking effect in June 2012, some 800,000 young people have registered for DACA , but ten years later there is still no permanent legal solution to their position. As summarized succinctly by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), “permanent protections for DREAMers have not been enacted and far too many other immigrants face uncertainty and fear.” Stoking even greater uncertainty and fear for DACA recipients, the program has faced consistent legal battles since President Donald J. Trump first tried to quash the program in 2017. More recently, in July 2021, a Texas judge ruled that DACA was unlawful, and the federal government has since stopped processing new applications from DACA-eligible immigrants and those whose DACA expired more than a year ago.
In the decade since DACA was first enacted, we have witnessed success stories, including those of DREAMers like Dulce Matuz, who came to the US with her parents as a young girl from Mexico and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. Ms. Matuz earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University. As a senior, she received an internship to work with NASA, one of the most highly sought out engineering internships in the country. However, after graduation she was unable to work as an engineer in the US due to her undocumented status. This prompted her to cofound the Arizona DREAM Act Coalition in 2009, a group that sought to establish legal rights for DACA recipients.
Ms. Matuz went on to be named one of the hundred most influential people in the world in April 2012 by Time Magazine and ultimately gained US citizenship through marriage. In 2022, however, the “majority of the undocumented immigrants graduating from high schools across the United States have none of the protections offered over the past 10 years”. These dreamers have awakened to a world where their future is in extreme jeopardy, as they are forced to set aside their dreams and potential due to their lack of access to work authorization, protection from deportation, and in some cases even ability to enroll in college.
The current state of limbo for DACA recipients leaves them “without the most basic tools to build a future in the only country many of them have ever known.” Just one individual affected by the current uncertainty is Jennifer, a 20-year-old resident of Oakland, California who came from El Salvador with her grandmother when she was five years old. She did not qualify for DACA because she entered the US twelve days after the cutoff date. She wants to go to college and study for a job in the health professions but cannot because she does not have a social security number or work permit. Due to her limited options, she works in a fast-food restaurant off the books. As Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) declared during a Senate Judiciary hearing, “When promising students … are pushed into the shadows, we all lose,” urging that “Congress must pass a legislative solution for Dreamers so more students can earn their degrees and join our workforce. Our economy needs the talents and passion of immigrant youth.”
Our loss in failing to support young immigrants is documented in the story of Sadhana Singh. Ms. Singh’s parents left Guyana when she was young. When President Obama made the DACA announcement, Ms. Singh was a 26-year-old resident of Georgia, with dreams of higher education and a meaningful career. Equipped with a social security card and work permit through DACA, Ms. Singh had the opportunity to realize her potential and graduated from Trinity Washington University. However, faced with years of uncertainty and no direct path to permanent residency or citizenship in the US, Ms. Singh and her husband moved to Canada, where they were granted permanent residency in just two years.
We remain hopeful that Congress will be inspired to resolve this dilemma so that we do not continue to lose out on the talents of young immigrants like Sadhana Singh. Our leaders should heed the advice of Former President Barack Obama who on the DACA anniversary urged to “honor these Dreamers and everything they’ve done to strengthen our country. Let’s treat them like the Americans that they are. And let’s do everything we can to help build a commonsense immigration system that honors our heritage as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.”