The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, had all but dropped out of the news until last week’s Democratic candidates debate in Houston, Texas. But then, as former Vice President Joe Biden began his closing remarks, the voices of four protesters were heard from the back of the room chanting, “We are DACA recipients! Our lives are at risk!”
The protesters, members of the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium, explained in a video posted on Twitter that they were disappointed with the candidates’ lack of attention to DACA.
“Hearing that there wasn’t much spoken during the debate about immigration, we felt compelled to speak up and say something,” one said. “I couldn’t bear just sitting there and letting them go on without addressing my life.”
DACA beneficiaries view themselves as vulnerable to an administration intent on capitalizing on anti-immigrant sentiment.
Created by President Barack Obama in 2012, DACA allowed young people brought to the United States as children without documentation to apply for work permits, get driver’s licenses, and go to college. With nearly 670,000 DACA recipients across the nation, the program has been the gateway to making a life in the United States for the children of immigrants who were born here.
But in September 2017, Trump rescinded the Obama era executive order that created DACA, and the futures of thousands of people were thrown into confusion. His administration gave Congress six months to come up with a legislative solution for the nation’s 700,000 Dreamers, which it has thus far failed to do.
Sofia Guerrero, a resident of Nashville, Tennessee, immigrated with her family to the United States from Mexico City, Mexico, when she was just four years old. Eighteen years later, as a beneficiary of DACA, she’s a college graduate and gainfully employed.
courtesy of Sofia Guerrero
Sofia Guerrero at a DACA march in Nashville, Tennessee, where she’s lived since she was four years old.
“DACA has given me the opportunity to make it,” Guerrero says. “It has allowed me to contribute to my city, my state, and society.”
Guerrero, who works with the nonprofit group, Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee, says her family was recently able to purchase its first home. It’s a source of deep pride.
“Because I am able to work, I can help support my family by contributing to home payments,” Guerrero says. “Being able to help my parents, who have sacrificed so much for myself and my siblings, while sustaining my dreams of going to college and be a part of my community has been a privilege.”
Despite living in uncertainty, Dreamers and their families contribute billions in federal, state, and local taxes each year. A new study by the Center for American Progress revealed that DACA recipients and their households pay $5.7 billion in federal taxes and $3.1 billion in state and local taxes annually. Those same households also hold a combined $24.1 billion in spending power, or income, after paying taxes each year.
Moreover, data from this study show that DACA recipients are generating revenue for states and localities through sales and property taxes. DACA recipients buy cars, open small businesses, purchase homes, and have significant wage effects on their communities. Many are community leaders, health-care providers, and business professionals.
The end of DACA could mean the deportation of thousands of people, which would hinder economic growth and leave communities with tangible voids.
Courtesy of Sofia Guerrero
A Metro Beautification Neighborhood Clean-up team in Antioch, Tennessee organized by the group, Futuro, a professional community that creates opportunities for civic engagement for Latino college students.
In Guerrero’s case, she obtained a bachelor’s degree in elementary education while also working on Nashville City Council races and with the Tennessee Latin Chamber of Commerce, among other involvements.
Yet Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature has done little to help DACA recipients. Despite paying federal income taxes, DACA recipients are ineligible for federal student aid, and must pay out-of-state tuition at Tennessee colleges and universities.
Former Tennesseee Governor Bill Haslam and several state legislators attempted to allow in-state tuition for undocumented students who had attended Tennessee high schools. The measure failed and students like Guerrero, were left with tuition costs that made college nearly unattainable.
A new study reveals that every year DACA recipients and their households contribute $5.7 billion in federal taxes and $3.1 billion in state and local taxes.
Tennessee state Senator Jeff Yarbro, Democrat of Nashville, represents a district with the largest immigrant and refugee population in the state. He says the most effective way to provide solutions regarding DACA is for lawmakers to create clear policies.
“The politics surrounding immigration has gone off the rails and become so polarized and disconnected from fact,” Yarbro tells The Progressive in an interview. “At the end of the day, it comes down to whether political leaders are willing to start making sensible and sustainable immigration laws.”
The two years since the program ended have consisted of political squabbling in Washington, D.C., legal challenges in the lower courts, and roaring protests led by immigration activists across the country.
Several lawsuits have been filed challenging the Trump Administration’s decision to end the program. Three court orders—Regents of the University of California, et al. v. Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS), Batalla Vidal v. Nielsen, and NAACP v. Trump—resulted in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to continue accepting renewal applications.
The U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments in November to determine if the Trump Administration’s decision to end the program was lawful. Its decision is expected by June 2020.
“The initial question the Supreme Court will likely be reviewing is if the judicial branch even has power to review the execution of immigration laws,” says Karla McKanders, director of the Immigration Practice Clinic and professor of refugee and immigration law at Vanderbilt University.
McKanders thinks there’s a chance the court will choose not to rule on the arguments, saying the judiciary has historically “taken a hands-off policy” towards decisions of political questions stemming from executive action.
Shoba Sivaprassad Wadhia, a colleague of McKanders and founding director of the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Penn State, writes in SCOTUSblog that the history of immigration in the United States has been geared toward compassion when it comes to the discretion of prosecutors on whom to target in enforcement and whom to leave alone.
“Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules in this case as a matter of law, the choice by the Trump Administration to end DACA represents an extraordinary use of discretion that is morally troubling and out of sync with history and our humanity,” writes Wadhia.
With her future in limbo, Guerrero remains focused on the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
“I’m positive about where 2020 is going,” says Guerrero. “Hopefully, that election can bring some change, whether that means extending DACA or the possibility of a pathway to citizenship. I hope for the best because I am active in local government and look forward to being able to participate in our democracy.”