While DACA may be temporarily on hold, it and TPS (Temporary Protected Status) are very much on the minds of some my students of Latino background.
Only 1 of my students from El Salvador, Honduras, or Nicaragua is personally affected by the ending of TPS — he was born in El Salvador, and is now 18 and living on his own with no status, no Green Card, no legal way of earning an income to pay his rent (he currently works for cash under the table). But I had several Latino girls in my AP classes ask me about what the ending of TPS means for them. All of them were born in the US. They are citizens, and not DIRECTLY affected. When TPS status ends they can legally stay in the US. But their parents are here under TPS, and thus will have to leave, either later this year (Honduras) or in 2019 (El Salvador and Nicaragua) or risk being rounded up by ICE and subject to deportation proceedings. Many of these students will not yet be 18 by the deadlines their parents have to leave.
My DACA studentsn (and in a few cases their parents) are currently in limbo, not knowing what will happen as the dispute works its way through the courts. I do not know of any who have already lost status, but I am not fully informed on all of them.
Some students worry that ICE might come to school and arrest them. Currently one of the few rights an undocumented alien has is the right to attend a public school.
Our school system, which has more than ¼ of its students from international background families, has put out a list of resources to which students and their families can turn to help them with this process.
Could we be seeing a lack of focus on academics given what these students face? Giving the number of students who have approached me, because they expect me to be knowledgeable, I worry about that. This is an issue of greater import for them and their families than their academic performance.
Yes, TPS was supposed to be temporary. And yet, if we have allowed people to stay for more than a decade, of what benefit is it for to now decide to force out hundreds of thousands whose lives are now fully rooted in our communities? Given that such people normally congregate together, what might be the impact on local communities — loss of employees, customers, lower tax revenues?
All of that are relevant political and governmental issues, things I am considering devoting some class time to.
But I am more concerned about the human dimension, the moral dimension.
Perhaps that is because my forebears came here from Eastern Europe to get away from anti-Semitism, to have a better future for themselves and their descendants. I am not one who wants to pull up the ladder after himself and deny that opportunity to others.
I wonder how many others here — as teachers, as employers, as neighbors, etc. — are now having to wrestle with the impact these policy changes will have on them and on those for whom they care?
UPDATE. It is relevant to share the following relevant Washington Post article:
Trump attacks protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries in Oval Office meeting