DACAmented but not Fully Documented
Neither DACA nor the DREAM Act Can Ever Substitute for Comprehensive Immigration Reform
By: Ricardo Infante, LULAC Education Policy Research Fellow
As evidence reveals, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) ought not to be an isolated measure or exception but barely the very first installment of an all-inclusive immigration reform package that grants legalization and eventual citizenship to the cohort of qualified undocumented youth and, by extension, to all qualified undocumented individuals in the U.S. In fact, the DACA law, as proposed and approved by the White House in July 2012, stands as no more than merely a partially fulfilled promise to the 1.76 million unauthorized immigrant young adults and children who are eligible for legalization of their status in the United States, commonly known as “DREAMers.” The undocumented young adults who aspire to access with full opportunity higher education and subsequently achieve professional and success were dubbed the DREAMers after the Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors, DREAM Act, a measure they have relentlessly advocated to pass in the U.S. Congress, with no luck. In reality, the diverse group of DACA recipients, other DREAMers and the rest of qualified undocumented immigrants become political casualties of the inaction in the U.S. House of Representatives with regards to Senate Resolution 744, the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act,” the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill, passed in the Senate during the summer.[1] The failure of the U.S. House to act on Senate Resolution 744, either passing the Senate Immigration Bill or reconciling it with the different legislation pieces it has crafted as part of immigration reform, would undermine the quality, reach, and coverage of any DREAM Act measure eventually included as part of a comprehensive immigration reform package. Under that scenario, DACA would become an anecdotal success that may have raised the hopes and aspirations of millions of undocumented youth in this country yet leaving them high and dry in a limbo exposed to future deportation and separation from their families in the U.S. Such an outrageous outcome would signify nothing short of a miscarriage of justice by the extreme conservative leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives. In effect, certain legislators in the U.S. House of Representatives are denying millions of qualified undocumented youth full legal status with a direct path to citizenship in the name of a obstinate and discriminatory conservative ideology right when undocumented youth had gotten the closest ever to their promised land, as provided in the Senate Resolution 744.
The Repercussions of DACA
The DACA program—an initiative of the Obama administration—does not provide permanent lawful status to applicants. However, the legislation grants two important advantages to approved applicants: a temporary suspension of deportation and the authorization to work legally in the United States. More than half a million people have applied for DACA through June 2013.[2]
Albeit DACA recipients are receiving its benefits, they continue to face hardships related to the blocked pathway to legalization of their families and communities (Immigration Policy Center 2013). Over the last several years, enforcement efforts have heightened levels of anxiety in immigrant communities and torn apart families (Immigration Policy Center 2013).
These young adults are likely to have suffered significant stress and family hardship as a result of the forced departure of a close family member (Immigration Policy Center 2013). Many are not informed properly on the specific provisions of the program nor get the support they need in filling out the applications (Singer 2013). Nevertheless, employment authorization, along with reprieve from deportation will most probably enable successful DACA applicants, especially those who have higher levels of education, to enhance their employment and economic conditions.[3]
Comprehensive immigration reform that provides a pathway to legalization, could benefit close family members of most DACA recipients.4 Approximately 86 percent of DACA recipients reported that their mother could in theory be eligible for comprehensive immigration reform.4 Meanwhile, 74 percent said their fathers could qualify, and 62 percent said their siblings could use such a change in federal
immigration policy.[4]
DACA recipients would likely become
U.S. citizens if given the opportunity. Ninety-four percent of survey participants expressed that
they would apply for citizenship if ever eligible. This finding suggests that DACA recipients seek to be further integrated into U.S.
society. Thus, DACA recipients have shown their commitment, loyalty, and sense
of belonging to the United States beyond reproach, contrary
to the especially baseless affronts coming from the far right who still portray undocumented youth as plainly using the system in order to take advantage of opportunities available to study and achieve socioeconomic mobility in the U.S. Clearly, passively agreeing upon a mere permit for work and educational enrollment, the essence of DACA, would severely weaken and curtail the professional and economic potential of millions of undocumented youth through legal status after the pursuit of higher education. Undoubtedly, the “DREAMers,” different undocumented youth, as well other unauthorized immigrants in the country can demand no less than comprehensive immigration reform with a DREAM Act provision and a direct path to citizenship from the U.S. House of Representatives. The final version of the law ought to agree in
its closest terms to the Border Security, Economic Opportunity,
and Immigration Modernization Act passed
by the Senate in July 2013.
Congressional Leadership Cannot Sleep on Laurels of DACA
The absence of enacted comprehensive immigration reform due
to the inaction in the U.S. House of Representatives on the matter, while U.S. leaders sleep on the “laurels” of DACA,
demonstrates an implicit form of immorality from most of the conservative political class in the U.S. because first and foremost their neglect on this issue is tearing apart families, particularly those of undocumented youth. The magnitude of the injustice committed against the families of undocumented youth and indeed, most immigrants with no legal status in the U.S., has prompted the bold and brave defiant action of “DREAMers” deported to Mexico who have crossed the U.S. border, first on July into San Diego port of entry and then on September 29 into El Paso, Texas, in their attempt to reunite with parents and other relatives in the U.S. Even on a daily basis, fences that separate the U.S. – Mexico border represent the only way undocumented youth and other immigrants can see their relatives who live on the south side of the border. The draconian separation of families with undocumented members
in the U.S., imposed by the neglect of lawmakers in the U.S. Congress, compels in the most heart-wrenching and cruel fashion undocumented parents of DACA recipients and other unauthorized immigrants even to abandon their infant and adolescent children to the care of friends and foster homes. The massive precarious legal, social, and economic predicament not to say extremely painful limbo in which DACA places the hundreds of thousands of undocumented youth and their families, who are separated because their struggle
to achieve legal status, has been trampled under the “tyranny” of other legislative priorities. The separation of “DREAMers” from their families and their suffering while being deprived of full legal authorization to study and work in the U.S. must lay on the
consciences of lawmakers and urge them to act immediately to take decisive action to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
The downside of “settling” for DACA for the lack of a conclusive solution, namely comprehensive immigration reform, can be of far- reaching negative social implications for U.S. society and jeopardize the future of both undocumented youth and the entire U.S. economy. This social and economic malaise deprives generations from the opportunities to achieve of their own merits the American Dream, arising out of a crammed agenda by a dysfunctional Congress
that continues to sacrifice them on the altar of ideology for other priorities, thus postponing debate of the immigration issue in the
U.S. House of Representatives. DACA as it is right now (a de facto, very feeble, limited, and excluding form of the DREAM Act), would deprive millions of potentially eligible youth of the opportunity
to become American citizens, thus truncating their professional dreams to pursue a career in public service or thwarting access to numerous educational opportunities available to U.S. nationals, such as graduate loans, fellowship positions available with nonprofits
and other government organizations, among others. This imposed professional handicap would continue to confine DACA recipients to extremely reduced career opportunities given their provisionary legal status and condemn other qualified undocumented youth and unauthorized immigrants to a second class status still in the
shadows. Consequently, lower earnings could prevent “DREAMers” from achieving economic success, leaving them subject to financial penury or ruin, unconscionable for educated, skilled youth who happen to lack permanent legal status in the United States. The result of inaction by the House on immigration reform means thwarting educational and economic opportunity for the “DREAMers,” which in turn imbues less revenue from lost taxation on the potential higher earnings of permanently legalized American youth who would not become professional and who would achieve economic success.
Even in the most utilitarian view of undocumented youth in the U.S., the revenue vacuum resulting from indefinite inaction on comprehensive immigration reform imbues a profoundly alarming and troubling harbinger when considering the U.S. public debt, currently standing at 16.73 trillion dollars and a U.S. budget deficit amounting at the time to about 750 billion dollars. By virtue of its inaction on comprehensive immigration reform, the U.S. House is
simply rejecting and losing the indefinite amount of potential revenue that could have been received from educated youth who could
easily have become professionals, provided permanent legal status and a pathway to citizenship for them. Indeed, this is tantamount to forfeiting an indefinite amount of future revenue that might in the short, medium, and long run drastically help cut and do away with the U.S. budget deficit, boost economic growth, and possibly eventually shrink the U.S. public debt. The U.S. Congress will miss
out this future revenue to the U.S. coffers for the sake of intransigent ideology and scapegoating even undocumented youth by some lawmakers.
Footnotes
1 Immigration Policy Institute. Immigrant Integration (CSII) at the University of Southern California. A Guide to S.744.
Understanding the 2013 Senate Immigration Bill. Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) at the University of
Southern California. Retrieved on September 24, 2013 from http:// immigrationpolicy.org/special-reports/guide-s744-understanding- 2013-senate-immigration-bill
2 Singer, A. & Prchal Svajlenka, N. (2013). Immigration Facts: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Brookings Institution. Series (3). Retrieved on September 23, 2013 from http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2013/08/14-daca-im- migration-singer
3 Batalova, Jeanne & Michelle Mittelstadt (2012). Relief from Deportation: Demographic
Profile of the DREAMers Potentially Eligible under the De- ferred Action Policy. Washington, DC. Migration Policy Institute. Retrieved from http://observatoriocolef.org/_admin/documentos/ FS24_deferredaction.pdf, on September 19, 2013
4 Immigration Policy Institute. Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) at the University of Southern Cali- fornia. How DACA is impacting the Lives of Those that are now DACAmented. Retrieved on September 24, 2013 from http://www. immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/how-daca-impacting-lives-those- who-are-now-dacamented