SAN DIEGO — Wednesday marks the 10 year anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, otherwise known as DACA. The program protects undocumented people from deportation who were brought to the United States as children.
Unless you need DACA to protect you from deportation or to be able to work in the United States legally, you may not realize that the program is on hold. That means hundreds of thousands of immigrants are in limbo.
One year ago, a federal judge in Texas rules that DACA is illegal and blocked the Biden Administration from granting any new applications. That means DACA is frozen in place.
Right now, 600,000 recipients can renew their status while the Biden Administration appeals. However, 80,000 dreamers are on hold and hundreds of thousands more cannot apply because they don’t meet the eligibility requirements created when President Obama signed DACA a decade ago. You can only apply for DACA if you’ve been in the U.S. continuously since 2007 so most dreamers graduating from high school today don’t qualify.
Frankie Miranda is the President and CEO of The Hispanic Federation. He says today’s 10-year anniversary is bittersweet because Congress is in a gridlock and not allowing any progress on anything related to immigration.
“We need to stop using documented people as a political football. This is about human rights of people who for all terms are American citizens that are working, that have children, that are born American citizens," said Miranda. "So at this point it is critically important to use this 10 year mark to find this political solution.”
Dulce Garcia was brought to the U.S. when she was four years old. Today, she is an immigration attorney and a DACA recipient. But she’d rather already be a U.S. citizen or at least a permanent resident.
“We pay social security, we pay taxes, we pay retirement, but not our own retirement. As a DACA recipient, I contribute to the system knowing I will never be able to get a single dollar out of it because DACA is only a work permit. I came at the age of four and I still don't have any way to fix my status. DACA is really the only thing that I have allowing me to stay here, allowing me to work. And without it, I would be deportable," said Garcia.
Miranda added that of the 600,000 current DACA recipients, 200,000 of those are essential workers who helped America get through the pandemic. The Hispanic Federation and other advocacy groups are now trying to push Congress for permanent solutions for immigrants.
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