Reuters/Lucy Nicholson
- Congress is one day into its government shutdown, and lawmakers appear no closer to a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
- The immigration program has been a major sticking point for lawmakers, many of whom are trying to pair the issue with other immigration-related demands.
As Congress heads into the second day of a government shutdown, one of the key issues at stake is immigration, namely a program that protects hundreds of thousands of young unauthorized immigrants known as “Dreamers.”
The Trump administration is terminating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and left Congress six months to enact some sort of replacement — and time is running out.
Though President Donald Trump and Republican leaders say they will not negotiate on immigration until the government reopens, Democrats are still pushing for a solution on DACA.
Here’s what you need to know about the program:
What is DACA?
Reuters/Mike Blake
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program shields from deportation roughly 690,000 young unauthorized immigrants by providing two-year, renewable permits. DACA was implemented by the Obama administration in 2012, after several attempts to legislate a permanent solution for Dreamers failed in Congress.
DACA does not grant immigrants a legal status in the US, but it provides work authorization and defers any immigration enforcement or removal actions they might otherwise be subject to.
Applicants to the program were only accepted if they were under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012. They also had to have moved to the US before they turned 16 years old, and lived in the US continuously since 2007.
They were also required to have graduated high school or obtained a GED, or completed prior military service, and to not have any prior felony or serious misdemeanor convictions.
The Trump administration announced September 5 it would wind down the program, calling it an act of executive overreach by the Obama administration and declaring it unconstitutional.
How is DACA being phased out?
Associated Press/J. Scott Applewhite
The Trump administration gave Congress six months to enact a legislative solution, announcing last September that the program would be terminated on March 5, 2018.
The administration allowed those DACA recipients with near-term expiry dates to renew their permits one last time, so long as they applied by October 5, 2017. For a number of reasons, including mail delays, roughly 22,000 DACA recipients who were eligible to renew failed to do so on time, and advocates estimate that 122 immigrants per day have lost their DACA protections since September 5.
DACA’s phase-out was further complicated in recent weeks by a ruling from a federal judge in California who ordered the Trump administration to resume processing DACA renewal applications.
The Trump administration quickly sought to appeal that ruling to the Supreme Court and a federal appeals court, but it did not seek a stay on the California judge’s initial ruling and will therefore continue processing DACA renewals for the foreseeable future.
The uncertainty over DACA’s termination date has prompted some lawmakers, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to argue that DACA should be excluded from funding negotiations because the program is not imminently at risk.
Immigration lawyers and advocates, however, argue that the uncertainty over DACA renewals only add urgency. Renewals can take months for the government to process, and that leaves both DACA recipients and their employers in limbo.
“It is going to be so detrimental to them, because they just don’t know. It’s hard for employers to plan,” Theda Fisher, a partner at the Withers Bergman law firm, told Business Insider. “[DACA recipients] also all live in a world of uncertainty. So if they have a car loan or a mortgage or a family here, they’re not sure if they’re going to be able to pay their bills come later this year when their work authorization expires.”
How do lawmakers feel about DACA?
Associated Press/Evan Vucci
Lawmakers on all sides of the political spectrum generally agree that DACA recipients were brought to the US through no fault of their own and grew up alongside Americans, and therefore should not face deportation en masse.
There are some exceptions, such as Rep. Steve King of Iowa, who has proposed that DACA recipients “go home” and that they could volunteer for the Peace Corps in their home countries.
King and some far-right immigration commentators argue that granting any type of “amnesty” to the DACA population would negatively impact American workers, particularly because DACA recipients are relatively well-educated, skilled, and competitive in the workforce. Economists say there is no evidence DACA recipients are systematically taking jobs away from American workers.
But in mainstream politics, the debate is not whether to let DACA recipients stay in the US, but what type of status to grant them.
Democrats believe DACA recipients should have a pathway to citizenship, and so should a broader population of unauthorized immigrants brought to the US as children who either fell outside of DACA’s age parameters or who may have been eligible for DACA but failed to apply.
Some Republicans also support a pathway to citizenship, but hard-line conservatives prefer to grant DACA recipients temporary, renewable permits, as has been suggested in a recent House GOP bill. The lawmakers fear that granting citizenship to DACA recipients would lead to the naturalization of their parents or other relatives, whom they could sponsor.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
