Immigrant youths from Dallas to D. C. say they’ ll fight vigorously for passage of federal legislation that provides them a path to citizenship, …
Immigrant youths from Dallas to D. C. say they’ ll fight vigorously for passage of federal legislation that provides them a path to citizenship, with President Donald Trump expected to announce Tuesday the phase-out of an Obama-era immigration initiative.
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, gave work permits to nearly 1 million young immigrants who crusaded for years for a more permanent solution from Congress. Trump plans to end the program in six months, according to reports, giving Congress a chance to pass legislation that would replace the popular program.
“I am more energized than ever, ” said Liz Magallanes, a 23-year-old Dallas immigrant who benefits from DACA. “There is a broader coalition of support than we knew.”
Magallanes, a leader in the immigrant youth movement known as the Dreamers, said rallies and face-to-face lobbying with members of Congress in D. C. and at district offices are being planned to promote legislation that would give them legal status. Among lobby targets: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who led a multistate coalition that gave Trump a Sept. 5 deadline to make a DACA decision.
The DACA initiative extended temporary relief from deportation and two-year renewable work permits to about 800,000 unauthorized immigrants. It came after repeated failures for more than a decade of legislation known as the Dream Act.
DACA was implemented in 2012 by President Barack Obama and was branded as “executive overreach” by opponents who wanted to crack down harder on illegal immigration. Supporters said the move was a legally sound use of executive authority and would provide relief to immigrants who had unlawful immigration status through no fault of their own, had grown up with U. S. culture, attended U. S. schools, and were American in all but official paperwork.
During his presidential campaign, Trump pledged to do away with the program, which he said “defied federal law, ” as part of his tough-on-immigration platform. But once in office, Trump began to equivocate about DACA’s fate, saying it was one of the most difficult decisions he had to make and telling its recipients that they should rest easy and that he would treat the program “with heart.”
Those statements angered immigration hawks, who carried Trump into office largely based on his promise to undo the program and other Obama policies. Trump, who has shown a distaste for making unpopular decisions, let months lapse without ending a program he had promised to undo on the first day of his administration.
Now, Trump can fulfill his campaign promise or heed calls from Democrats, business leaders and some Republicans to show lenience toward the young immigrants. Either way, the decision will send ripples through the country’s immigration system, politics and economy.
Some were quick to press the economic argument for DACA as it appeared Trump might end the program. Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted Sunday that he stands by the 250 Apple employees who benefit from DACA. Over the weekend, CEO Randall Stephenson of Dallas-based AT&T joined Apple and several other members of FWD.us, a tech and science lobbying firm, in signing a letter pressing Trump to maintain DACA and both parties in Congress to protect the program through legislation as soon as possible.
More than 124,000 immigrants in Texas have benefited from the DACA program, and about 216,000 were eligible for its protections. Removing the 104,000 recipients who are workers would cost Texas over $6.1 billion, and 80 percent of employed DACA recipients cite their bilingualism as beneficial to their employers, according to reports by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning Washington think tank.
Some immigrants made clear in social media posts how pained they were that Trump didn’ t make a decisive effort to save the program.
“If this is a hint at the “heart” that @realDonaldTrump has for me and 800,000 others… TRY AGAIN, ” tweeted Greisa Martinez, who grew up in Dallas and is the national advocacy director of United We Dream in D. C.
In Dallas, the Facebook page of the North Texas Dream Team carried a lengthy message. “Es tiempo de acelarar la lucha, ” it read — it’s time to accelerate the fight. On another site for the “DACAmented, ” an immigrant posted “101 ways to cope with stress.”
Others tried to give each other therapy by suggesting uplifting songs, such as “My Shot” from the musical Hamilton. The lyric about Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant, was written by playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda: “Yo, I’ m just like my country, I’ m young, scrappy and hungry! I’ m not throwing away my shot.”
Dreamers have been credited with inspiring U. S. citizens in various other civil rights causes. “Undocumented and unafraid” and “here to stay” are two of the Dreamer mottos. Now, their energy and focus will be tested hard.
“It’s an exhilarating moment because of what’s at stake, ” said Magallanes, who came to Texas as a 7-year-old from the border city of Juarez. “There is so much unity.”
Jose Manuel Santoyo, a Dallas DACA beneficiary, said he, too, would lobby. «We can’t just stay on DACA, especially if we can fight for a citizenship path.»
But Santoyo, 25, said he worried about legislation that provides a pathway to citizenship and then adds items such as a beefed-up number of immigration agents or a border wall.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S. C., said this weekend he supported Trump’s decision.
“I have always believed DACA was presidential overreach. However, I equally understand the plight of the Dream Act kids who — for all practical purposes — know no country other than America.”
Republican lawmakers in Texas, which has the second-largest population of unauthorized immigrants in the country, were somewhat silent about their hopes for the program’s future.
In Houston on Monday to meet with Hurricane Harvey flooding evacuees, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., called the six-month deadline an indication that «everybody understands that the immigration system is broken. This is an opportunity for the House and the Senate to finally solve our immigration [system] and move legislation through.
