Ashly Trejo Mejia, a 23-year-old from Hyattsville, Maryland, is uncertain about her future medical school aspirations due to an impending court decision that could terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects immigrants brought into the country illegally as children.
“You’re frozen in time,” she said.
Trejo Mejia joined dozens of organizers and several lawmakers outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to urge the Biden administration to establish permanent protections for the nearly 579,000 DACA recipients ahead of a 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision that could declare the program unlawful. This case is expected to reach the Supreme Court.
Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Alex Padilla of California and Reps. Sylvia Garcia of Texas, Delia Ramirez of Illinois, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, called on President Joe Biden to use his executive authority to protect DACA beneficiaries. The lawmakers suggested options such as granting parole or Deferred Enforced Departure status, which temporarily exempts individuals from deportation.
“This was a promise made by the Biden administration, that they would address this issue and we gotta keep them on this promise,” Tlaib emphasized.
Padilla noted that due to the current composition of Congress, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats holding a slim Senate majority, any action on DACA must come from the White House.
“He has an executive authority to provide relief for caregivers, for Dreamers, for DACA recipients and the undocumented spouses of United States citizens,” Padilla said.
DACA recipients are often referred to as “Dreamers,” based on the never-passed Dream Act legislation.
The White House did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on potential executive actions related to DACA.
The DACA program is currently threatened by a lawsuit led by seven states: Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, and West Virginia. The states argue that DACA imposes an undue burden on them and that the Obama administration did not follow proper procedures when implementing the program in 2012.
While the Biden administration issued its own final rule on DACA, a federal judge declared it unlawful in September 2023. The administration has appealed to the 5th Circuit and is awaiting a decision.
Under a federal court order, DACA remains in place for current beneficiaries, but an injunction prevents new applicants from joining the program. This has affected individuals like Reyna Valdivias Solorio, who came to the U.S. as a one-year-old and recently graduated from Nevada State University.
“I’ve been undocumented my whole life,” Valdivias Solorio said. “The hardest part is the emotional stress that comes from living in fear that one day, my older siblings, my parents, and I could be deported and be separated from my younger siblings in this country we call home.”
There are about 94,500 pending DACA applications, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data. FWD.us estimates that 400,000 eligible undocumented youth cannot meet DACA requirements because they arrived in the U.S. too recently.
DACA has faced numerous legal challenges, including an attempt by the Trump administration in 2017 to rescind the program. This move was blocked by the Supreme Court in June 2020, which ordered the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to accept new DACA applications, although the Trump administration delayed until December 2020.
Americans with undocumented spouses have also voiced their frustrations with the White House. Speakers at Wednesday’s event called for executive action to protect over 1.1 million Americans whose spouses face the threat of deportation.
Rep. Delia Ramirez shared that her husband, a DACA recipient since he was 14, is one of many adults still waiting for a pathway to citizenship.
“I get to call him my husband,” Ramirez said. “Unfortunately, this country calls him undocumented.”
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