Hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the United States celebrated last Saturday (15) the 12th anniversary of a program that allowed them to stay in the country, study, work, and build lives without the fear of deportation.
The program ‘Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals’, or DACA, as it is known, was launched 12 years ago on June 15, as an executive order from President Obama. Although its beneficiaries had hoped that by now they would be permanent residents, they celebrate nonetheless the education, better-paying jobs, families, and homes they have managed to achieve, and, most importantly, the liberation from the fear of deportation.
But the celebration is tempered by the possibility that Republicans may succeed in their legal and political battle to end DACA. Donald Trump, who has previously tried to end DACA and blocked new applications, could be re-elected president this November.
Other millions of immigrants who also arrived here as children and did not qualify for the program continue to lament their misfortune.
Adding to this, by 2025, no undocumented high school student will qualify for DACA because they will have entered the U.S. after the mandatory arrival date of June 15, 2007, according to FWD.US, a progressive group focused on immigration and criminal justice.
These realities have created urgencies for the November elections that have many immigrant advocates criticizing President Joe Biden for not doing more to protect this group of immigrants.
Biden’s campaign spokesperson, Fabiola Rodriguez, said in a statement that “on his first day in office, President Biden sent Congress a plan to provide a pathway to citizenship for ‘dreamers’ and has done everything in his power to preserve and strengthen the DACA program, including expanding quality health services for over 100,000 dreamers.” She added that Trump “is promising to end the DACA program, separate families, and institute mass detention camps for immigrants.”
So far, about 530,000 people are in the U.S. under DACA. It is estimated that 84,000 have pending applications that were submitted when the ban on new applications was briefly lifted. In 2023, the Migration Policy Institute estimated that over 1.16 million immigrants would have qualified for DACA under the 2012 rules if the program had been allowed to continue.Block on new applications
The Biden administration began accepting new DACA applications in 2021, but a Texas court ruled DACA illegal and again blocked the processing of all new applications. The Biden administration still accepts new applications but does not process them.
Source: NBC News