10 things to know about 800K DACA recipients, 'dreamers' and Trump

Dianna M. Náñez Laura Gómez
The Republic | azcentral.com
The 2017 Dream Act would offer young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, such as DACA recipient Raul Gallardo, a path to citizenship.

President Donald Trump fulfilled Tuesday his campaign promise to roll back an immigration program, established by former President Barack Obama, that temporarily protects young migrants from deportation.

About 28,000 migrants in Arizona and nearly 800,000 nationwide are recipients of DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

"Dreamers" — the name given to these young people — are on edge. So are their families and friends. Immigration hardliners are pushing Trump to keep his campaign promises and send all of the estimated 11 million migrants without legal status back to their home countries ― including the dreamers.

A bipartisan coalition of politicians pleaded with Trump to keep the program and give Congress a chance to find a legislative fix.

Trump told Congress on Twitter Tuesday morning to "get ready to do your job ― DACA!"

Attorney General Jeff Session said Tuesday that the Department of Homeland Security had chosen "to initiate a wind-down process" of the program, with the intention of giving Congress time to act. 

Here's what you need to know about this political showdown over an immigration policy that affects hundreds of thousands of migrants.

1. What is DACA and what does DACA stand for?

DACA stands for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The program has protected nearly 800,000 migrants from deportation. The majority of migrants who qualify for the program have lived in the country without legal authorization since they were children.

Some parents brought them to the U.S. illegally. Others came with parents who overstayed their visas and no longer had legal authorization to remain in the U.S.

In 2012, Obama signed an executive order to temporarily shield about 1 million eligible immigrants from deportation. Obama did not consult with Congress on DACA, angering Republicans and some Democrats from conservative states.

To apply for DACA, migrants must meet certain requirements. They must have entered the U.S. before turning 16, have no serious criminal background and have lived continuously in the U.S. since June 15, 2007.

The program cleared the way for dreamers to obtain driver's licenses, work permits and, in some states, qualify for in-state tuition.

MORE:  Arizona Appeals Court overturns in-state tuition for 'dreamers'

Dreamers applied for the program by the thousands. They paid the $485 application fee, which doesn't include attorney fees. They came out of the shadows and gave the government their home addresses and the addresses of their family members.

DACA didn't give them a pathway to citizenship, but it gave them a reprieve. Many renewed their DACA application twice before Trump became president.

Under the new Trump administration directive, renewals must be submitted for consideration by Oct. 5 if the work permit is set to expire before March 5, 2018.

2. What happens if a DACA recipient commits a crime?

DACA does not prevent recipients from being deported if they are convicted of a crime.

Approval and renewal is granted to DACA applicants if, among other requirements, they,

  • Have not been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor, or
  • three or more other misdemeanors, and
  • do not otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety.

3. How many people actually benefit from DACA?

Through March, 1,586,657 people nationally have been approved for the program, and of those, 799,077 have been approved for renewals, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

California has 222,795 initial DACA recipients, the highest in the nation, followed by 124,300 in Texas and 42,376 in Illinois, according to USCIS.

In Arizona, 27,865 people have been approved for the program, the state with the sixth-highest number of DACA recipients, according to USCIS.

Less than 1 percent of those recipients are enrolled in Arizona's three public universities and about 7 percent — or 2,056 DACA recipients — are enrolled in the Maricopa County Community College District, according to December 2016 figures. 

As of December 2016, Arizona State University had 186 DACA students, the University of Arizona had 45 and Northern Arizona University had nine.

4. What countries are DACA recipients from? 

Nationally, the majority of DACA recipients (about 78 percent) are from Mexico, according to the USCIS.

The second most common country of origin is El Salvador at about 4 percent, followed by other Central American nations, Guatemala and Honduras, both at about 2 percent.

Other countries of origin, including South Korea, Brazil, Jamaica, Poland, Pakistan and India, among many others, account for less than 1 percent each. 

5. How did we get to DACA? And is it part of the Dream Act?

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed an immigration reform bill that tightened security on the U.S.-Mexico border. The bill also included a provision that made migrants who entered the country prior to 1982 eligible for amnesty.

An estimated 3 million migrants were granted amnesty. There was a public backlash against the law after it failed to curb illegal immigration.

Many employers continued to hire workers without legal status and waves of migrants continued to cross the border illegally or overstay their visas looking for work and a better life for their children.

By the time Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama pushed immigration reform bills, there were millions of migrants without legal authorization in America. Many of these migrants had children who grew up in the U.S. Some of these children did not know they were in the country without legal authorization until they were old enough to ask for a driver’s license or some other rite of passage that required a Social Security number.

Bush and Obama both saw immigration reform as an opportunity to make inroads with a growing Latino voting bloc. Both presidents tried to persuade Congress to pass comprehensive reform. Both presidents failed, as did several congressional leaders who introduced bipartisan efforts.

In 2010, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), revived the Dream Act. The so-called dreamers  launched hunger strikes, protests and sit-ins. But the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act failed with a 55-41 vote, mostly along party lines.

The Dream Act of 2010 would have included a pathway to citizenship for certain migrants who came to the U.S. as children.

Dreamers didn't give up nor did their detractors.

6. How does President Trump view the dreamers?

Trump campaigned as a hardliner on immigration.

He called DACA “illegal amnesty.” When he won the election, dreamers and migrant-rights groups worried Trump would start mass deportations. 

But shortly after his inauguration, he seemed both sympathetic and suspicious.

"We’re going to show great heart," he said in a February press conference. "DACA is a very, very difficult subject for me, I will tell you."

In June, the Department of Homeland Security issued guidance ahead of a court-ordered deadline in a lawsuit to halt Obama's effort to expand DACA to parents of dreamers and people with green cards.

The Trump administration then faced another deadline when a group of Republican state attorneys general threatened to sue if DACA was not ended by Sept. 5.

There was a bipartisan call for Trump not to end DACA. Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery backed off his threat to sue over DACA. He cited a “human element” and urged Congress to act.

House Speaker Paul Ryan told WCLO, his hometown radio station, that Trump ending DACA is not the fix he wants. He joined a call for a legislative solution.

On Friday, Trump told reporters, “We love the dreamers, we love everybody."

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that Trump wanted to make a decision on DACA with "compassion" and "wrestled with this back and forth in large part because this is not an easy one."

"But at the same time you can't allow emotion to govern," Huckabee Sanders said.  

7. What is the economic impact of the DACA program?

Eliminating the program would deal a major blow to the U.S. economy, according to a new report by the Center for American Progress, a liberal organization, and fwd.us, an immigrant-advocacy group backed by several large tech companies.

The report, based on a study that found that nearly 700,000, or 91 percent, of DACA recipients have jobs, says removing DACA recipients from the workforce will cost the U.S. GDP $460 billion over 10 years. It would also cost employers $3.4 billion in turnover costs to replace lost workers and reduce contributions to Medicare and Social Security by $24.6 billion over 10 years.

Critics of the program, however, argue DACA recipients take jobs that should go to unemployed Americans.

8. What about the benefits they take? And do they have Social Security numbers?

Once DACA applicants are approved and receive a temporary employment authorization card, they can apply for a Social Security Number. Under this number, they can report wages and pay taxes.

DACA beneficiaries cannot receive federal benefits such as welfare and food stamps. Some states allow for state-funded benefits, but Arizona specifically prohibits it.

In this Aug. 15, 2017, file photo, a woman holds up a signs in support of the Obama administration program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, during an immigration reform rally at the White House in Washington. After months of delays, President Donald Trump is expected to decide soon on the fate of so called “dreamers” who were brought into the country illegally as children as he faces a looming court deadline and is digging in on appeals to his base. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

9. Why don't DACA recipients just become citizens?

The DACA program does not grant a pathway to citizenship. 

To apply for citizenship, an immigrant must first become a legal permanent resident.

The most common way for immigrants with no status to become legal permanent residents is through an immediate or close family member who petitions for them.

Sponsoring relatives must be U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.

But that sponsoring process can take years, or even decades because of limits on the number of green cards issued per the country of origin and depending on whether the sponsor is petitioning for an immediate or close relative. 

For example, the current wait for sibling-sponsored green cards for people from Mexico is 30 years, or longer, because siblings are a lower priority under U.S. immigration law. 

Immigrant parents, spouses and children under 21 of U.S. citizens have top priority.

Immediate relatives include a spouse, parent, or children over 21.

Close relatives include siblings over 21.

10. Does DACA grant legal immigration status?

The most commonly cited document when it comes to this is a Department of Homeland Security “Frequently Asked Questions” sheet that says DACA recipients are authorized to be present in the country stating,

 “An individual who has received deferred action is authorized by DHS to be present in the United States, and is therefore considered by DHS to be lawfully present during the period deferred action is in effect. However, deferred action does not confer lawful status upon an individual, nor does it excuse any previous or subsequent periods of unlawful presence.

This question has been at the center of a lawsuit in Arizona.

Once DACA was in effect, the Maricopa Community Colleges District granted eligibility to in-state tuition for its beneficiaries as long as they held work permits when enrolling, but the state disagreed and sued based on a state statute.
 
An Arizona voter-approved law from 2006 allows in-state tuition for students who are U.S. citizens, legal residents or have lawful immigration status in this country.
 
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled in May 2015 that young immigrants known as dreamers were considered legally present in the U.S. and therefore qualify for state benefits.
 
This ruling pushed the state’s public universities to grant in-state tuition rates to DACA students.

The Maricopa County Community College District board room was filled to capacity with DACA students who awaited the board's decision on whether to appeal a court ruling that would prohibit students known as "dreamers"from receiving in-state tuition in Arizona.

But in June 2017, the Arizona Court of Appeals overturned the lower court’s decision. 

A presiding judge wrote the DACA program did not confer legal status, adding that federal immigration law allows each state to decide on optional benefits for DACA recipients, and Arizona law bars in-state tuition.

The case is under appeal in the Arizona Supreme Court.

Arizona Republic reporters Daniel Gonzalez and Anne Ryman contributed to this article. 

READ MORE:

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