While talk in Washington has shifted to hurricane relief, North Korea, healthcare and budget priorities, the fate of 800,000 people remains in jeopardy.
That figure represents the number of recipients who have qualified for certain protections under the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an immigration initiative established under President Barack Obama in 2012.
For these students, businesses owners, soldiers, sailors and everyday people, the waiting and uncertainty about their futures—and in many cases those of their friends and relatives—is the hardest part. “It’s really heartbreaking to see so many people who have been in this country most of their lives who now have to wonder what could happen to them,” said Gary Silbiger, a former Culver City mayor and an immigration lawyer.
As a member of the progressive public interest group the National Lawyers Guild, which is assisting people who qualified under DACA, he has heard cases of their parents being arrested and deported.
“That’s some of the most heartbreaking thing s about this policy: whole families can be torn apart,” Silbiger lamented.
In a letter to the families of students enrolled in the Culver City Unified School District, Interim CCUSD Supt. Leslie Lockhart also talked about the impact that the Trump administration’s position on DACA could have on families.
“What is most disturbing about [the] action to end DACA is the way it would rip families apart. Not only would the elimination of DACA protections impact high school students who are presently participating in the program, and younger students age 10-14 who will be eligible upon turning 15, but also parents of United States citizens who arrived in this country as children,” Lockhart wrote. “These parents would be subject to deportation even though they arrived in this country as children and would be separated from their children – many of whom are U.S. citizens.”
To qualify for the program, applicants cannot have a felony record, must be a high school graduate or enrolled in school or in the armed services, entered the United States before their 16th birthday or before June 2007 and be under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012.
Lawmakers vacillations on immigration policy only seem to add to the existing anxiety.
President Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail that he would rollback protections from deportations and the right to work for those covered by DACA, and on Sept. 5 he enlisted Attorney General Jeff Sessions to announce plans to end the program.
Sessions also claimed the immigration policy had “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens”—a dubious claim that PolitFact ruled as not proven.
Days later Trump said if Congress did not act within six months he would reconsider revoking Obama’s executive order.
Later, in a debt ceiling deal with Democratic leaders, the possibility of Congress pursuing a DREAM ACT (The Development, Relief, Education and for Alien Minors) came up.
The DREAM ACT would grant immigrants conditional residency and later, after meeting certain requirements, permanent residency.
Silbiger thinks that is the most effective way to way to go. “That’s where the big push should be—permanent residency,” he said. “There have been other immigration policies over the years that are a part of our immigrations laws that protect people from other countries, so this wouldn’t be something that’s out of the ordinary.”
Silbiger mentioned the “Wet feet, Dry feet,” immigration policy that allowed Cubans fleeing their home country to pursue residency in the United States after a year and eventually citizenship if they were able to reach American soil (dry feet). If they were caught between the two countries they would be sent home or to another country (wet feet).
The policy, favored by many U.S. conservatives, was ended in Obama’s last year in office.
Rep. Karen Bass (D- Culver City) blasted Trump’s plan to end DACA.
“Trump’s emphatic lack of empathy continues to destroy our communities and stain our reputation abroad. DREAMers aren’t just ‘other country’s kids.’ Especially in Los Angeles, they are students, teachers, coaches, mentors, entrepreneurs and community leaders from every continent. They’re from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They’re friends and they’re family. I stand with DREAMers here in Los Angeles and throughout the entire country. We will make this right,” Bass pledged.
Salma Morales has a message for all DACA recipients: Don’t give up.
Morales, 19, is a politically active student at Santa Monica College who thinks Trump’s stance on DACA is a cynical ploy to play to a partisan audience at the expense of young immigrants like her.
“This is a big motivator for me. This is criminalizing us and that’s wrong. We’re definitely going to fight this,” pledged Morales, who organized a march from Santa Monica College to Santa Monica City Hall to protest the Trump administration’s new DACA policy earlier this month.
Silbiger said the silver linings in the DACA debate are people who had put off finalizing or taking a serious look at their immigration status are now doing so, and many immigrant millennials like Morales and young people who are already U.S. citizens are becoming more politically aware and politically active.
“In many ways, I think [Trump] has become progressives’ best organizing tool in years,” he said.
Gary Walker contributed to this story.