Wednesday marked 10 years since the announcement of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. While the program stands after years of anti-immigrant attacks, it’s only partially in effect following a lawsuit from corrupt Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. But even if the program were accepting first-time applications today, many undocumented youth would still be shut out because of current guidelines.
“For the first time, a majority of the undocumented immigrants graduating from high schools across the United States have none of the protections offered over the past 10 years under” DACA, The New York Times reports, saying that this number could grow by 100,000 annually.
RELATED STORY: On DACA's 10th anniversary, immigrants celebrate wins, continue pushing for citizenship for all
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There’s no understating the transformative role that the DACA program has played in the lives of hundreds of thousands of young immigrants, who have been able to work legally, obtain driver’s licenses, access in-state tuition, apply for federal housing loans, buy a car, and live freer from the threat of deportation after enrollment. Nearly 90% of DACA recipients from a 2018 survey said they were currently employed.
But absent a more expanded DACA program or legislative action, thousands of undocumented youth will be graduating high school “without the most basic tools to build a future in the only country many of them have ever known,” The New York Times continued. “After doing all this work, I don’t know where it’s going to lead me,” Tommy Esquivel said in the report. He graduated from Hollywood High School this week and has lived the U.S. since he was in the third grade. “I don’t know what I can do.”
“Undocumented students are also ineligible for federal financial aid, including loans and grants, which many students use to subsidize the extremely high cost of higher education,” said immigration reform advocacy group FWD.us in a report. “And, without the protection and benefits that DACA offers, many can’t obtain driver’s licenses in their state, a necessity for many traveling outside of cities to colleges.
“Without access to these supports, higher education would be prohibitively expensive and likely inaccessible for most undocumented students,” FWD.us continued.
DACA survived the previous administration thanks to the activism of young immigrants, who took their fight all the way to the Supreme Court and won in a 5-4 ruling. But despite the popularity and success of the program, anti-immigrant Republicans continued attacking the policy, taking their lawsuit to a window-shopped judge in Texas. While Andrew Hanen is allowing DACA renewals to continue, all new applications have been halted. Tens of thousands of first-time applicants who had paperwork pending lost out on enrollment because of the ruling, and had their fees stolen in the process.
Domonick, a 22-year-old, is among the young immigrants who are not eligible for DACA because of entering the U.S. “a few days after the program’s cutoff date,” The New York Times reported. While he’s been able to attend Florida International University thanks to a scholarship from TheDream.US (the organization has awarded more than $60 million in scholarships to undocumented youth as of 2018), he can’t get a driver’s license or other state identification. His graduation is coming up in December, and it should be an exciting time—but he’s worried.
“Will I be able to find employment in my field, contribute to this country, ever live a regular life?” he told The New York Times. The state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, is on a rabid anti-immigrant trip because he wants to be president. “Will I have to pack up and leave the only place that I call home?”
“Enough is enough,” said Mario Carrillo, a Texas-based organizer who is married to a DACA recipient. Carrillo was among the chorus of voices who urged permanent relief on DACA’s anniversary. “Indeed, versions of the Dream Act and similar legislation passed the Senate in 2006, the House in 2010 and 2020 and the Senate in 2013, only to be thwarted by Republicans each time. DACA recipients like my wife Angie and tens of thousands of other families remain in limbo, living their lives in two year increments, worried about what GOP legal challenges to DACA might mean for our future.”
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