Fourteen years ago, the United States government made a promise. By announcing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the government told young people: submit to background checks, prove your eligibility, pay your fees — and we will protect you from deportation. Hundreds of thousands of people staked their lives on that promise. And now the Trump Administration is breaking it.
President Trump has gone back on his word that he would protect Dreamers. This administration has detained more than 260 DACA recipients and deported more than 85. In April, DACA was further weakened when the Board of Immigration Appeals issued a decision that DACA is not enough to provide protection from deportation. The Department of Homeland Security is not even trying to hide its position anymore, stating recently that having DACA status will not protect people from deportation.
Among those who have been recently detained is Juan Chavez Velasco, a DACA recipient who had built a career as a medical laboratory scientist, working on the front lines to save lives during the pandemic. In February, he was stopped by ICE in Texas while traveling to visit his U.S. citizen wife and his premature U.S. citizen baby in a neonatal intensive care unit. After months of advocacy, Juan was eventually released in May. Unfortunately, many other DACA recipients continue to face the repercussions of these broken promises and remain detained and away from their families.
These detentions illustrate the fundamental betrayal at the center of the administration’s immigration enforcement policy: claiming to target hardened criminals while detaining and deporting long standing, law-abiding individuals across the country.
Some may ask why this concerns their day-to-day lives. The harms families suffer when DACA recipients are deported are profound and the negative economic impacts communities face because of these deportations are grave and reach far beyond the families directly affected. As of 2024, DACA recipients contributed more than $2 billion to Social Security and Medicare –two programs they are not eligible for –and they lawfully earned nearly $28 billion as both employers and employees. Removing DACA recipients undercuts the economic drivers of our communities.
As Americans, we should consider what happens when the United States goes back on even more promises. Are the promises that provide people with healthcare, basic education or clean water safe? While administrations change, there are promises, rights and freedoms we expect every administration to uphold. DACA should be one of those promises.
Immigrants, their American citizen family members and their employers relied in good faith on the government. They followed the process and instructions given to them. They trusted that they would continue to have protection from deportation so long as they followed the requirements and honored their side of the agreement because they relied on the government keeping its word. If the government can betray them, the rights of all of us are at risk.
As we commemorate the 14th anniversary of DACA, we are heartened that polling demonstrates that Americans strongly support granting legal status and a pathway to citizenship to immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. However, only Congress can grant them that reality, which is why it must act to provide permanent protection for these Dreamers who are Americans in every way except on paper.
UnidosUS has advocated for these protections for decades, and we will continue to demand that Congress finally act and deliver the permanent solution Dreamers deserve and desperately need.
(*) Janet Murguía, President and CEO of UnidosUS.
The texts published in this section are the authors’ sole responsibility, and La Opinión assumes no responsibility for them.
Leave a Reply