By Nicolas Simbaqueva
President Donald Trump announced in early September that he was putting an end to a popular program that gave young undocumented immigrants a way to live a life outside the shadows. The program–Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)–was begun in 2012 under an executive order by President Barack Obama and covers around 800,000 undocumented youth, the majority of them Latinos. The program offered no permanent status but instead was meant to “lift the shadow of deportation from these young people,” as Barack Obama stated in the press conference addressing his decision. DACA also allows for young people to get their driver’s licenses, apply for financial aid, and other things that they could not do to live a normal life before.
The program only covers a very limited number of youth and it recipients have to renew every two years. President Trump stated that he was trying to get the program through “the right way”–meaning through Congress–even though both the Senate and the House are a Republican majority and are unlikely to support the bill’s existence. Despite his statement that he “love[s] these kids,” his actions show a willingness to jeopardize their futures. Republican Senator Thom Tillis from North Carolina proposed a bill called Solution for Undocumented Children through Careers, Employment, Education, and Defending our Nation Act, or SUCCEED, on September 25th, 2017. The bill has been criticized because it wouldn’t cover as many people and seems intended to pacify those who want Congress to pass the DREAM Act.
The recent assembly at LREI about DACA presented key facts and statistics about the program’s origins, scope, and purpose. But it was not able to include the voice of a real DACA recipient and thus wasn’t able to give direct voice to the struggle and uncertainty that were talked about. To rectify this, I interviewed Karen, an eighteen-year-old DACA recipient who asked that her last name be withheld to protect her privacy, over chat to try and get a more real-life perspective on the issue than we usually hear.
Karen likes to learn and she has to work, both of which she can only perform with DACA. “I like to play soccer and draw cartoons,” she said. “I’m currently not doing either because I’m enrolled full time at Kingsborough [as a] nursing major and working full time as well.”
Karen first heard about DACA on television when she was fifteen years old, and she applied as soon as she turned sixteen and became eligible. The program has unexpectedly given her a sense of community, “There were a lot of times where I thought I was the only one who came here as a child,” she says, “but with DACA you realize that there is a whole community and so many people just like you, so you feel a part of something and it’s something really nice [because] everybody understands your situation and feels the same.”
DACA also provided a sense of comfort amongst the people who were covered by it. It helped to establish a legitimate and public community. Thanks to this she took her driver’s test and got to go to college. She is currently studying to become a nurse. However, she has fears after college without DACA. “For me the fact that DACA is being targeted is kind of giving me uncertainty because if I don’t have anything, I’m doing nursing and at the end of the day I’m not going to be able to get my license without any deferred action.”
Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/DACA_rally_SF_20170905-8471.jpg