What is daca and who are the dreamers

What is daca and who are the dreamers

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday it plans to scrap the program giving temporary legal immigration status to people who arrived in the US illegally as children. Attorney general Jeff Sessions said the US would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) policy in March 2018, throwing almost 800,000 people who currently benefit from the program into a state of turmoil and fear.

What is Daca?

Daca is a federal government program created in 2012 under Barack Obama to allow people brought to the US illegally as children the temporary right to live, study and work legally in America. Those applying are vetted for any criminal history or threat to national security and must be students or have completed school or military service. If they pass vetting, action to deport them is deferred for two years, with a chance to renew, and they become eligible for basics like a driving license, college enrolment or a work permit.

Who are the ‘Dreamers’?

Those protected under Daca are known as “Dreamers” and 787,580 have been granted approval. To apply, they must have been younger than 31 on 15 June 2012, when the program began, and “undocumented”, lacking legal immigration status. They must have arrived in the US before turning 16 and lived there continuously since June 2007.

Why are they called Dreamers?

The Daca program was a compromise devised by the Obama administration after Congress failed to pass the so-called Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (Dream) Act, which would have offered those who had arrived illegally as children the chance of permanent legal residency. The bipartisan act was first introduced in 2001 and has repeatedly failed to pass.

What has Trump announced?

During last year’s divisive election campaign, Trump promised to rip up Daca immediately, and make the deportation of the US’s estimated 11 million undocumented persons a top priority, along with his threats to ban all Muslims from entering the US, and build a wall along the entire border with Mexico. He has not yet successfully executed any of these threats.

The administration has now announced it will begin “an orderly, lawful wind down” of Daca, including “the cancellation of the memo that authorized this program”, which was a memo from homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano to immigration chiefs in 2012 telling them not to enforce deportation of Dreamers. Trump is now giving Congress six months to come up with a legislative solution to resolve the Dreamers’ status. Because Obama created the Daca program as an executive policy decision, Trump had the power simply to reverse his policy. Meanwhile, he has indicated that the government will “generally not take actions” to remove law-abiding Daca recipients.

What will happen to the Dreamers?

New applications under Daca will no longer be accepted. For those currently in the program, their legal status and other Daca-related permits (such as to work and attend college) will begin expiring in March 2018 – unless Congress passes legislation allowing a new channel for temporary or permanent legal immigration status – and Dreamers will all lose their status by March 2020 and sent back to countries of birth many have no familiarity with.

Why were Republican state attorneys general suing Trump over Daca?

Many in Trump’s hardline conservative base argue that Daca is unconstitutional and Dreamers are illegal and threaten American jobs and culture. Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, sent a letter to Sessions (who opposes Daca) in June, threatening to add Daca to another anti-immigration lawsuit already under way against the federal government unless it cancels the program by 5 September.

Who supports Daca?

In addition to immigration advocates and most Democratic politicians, a majority of national politicians in the Republican party reportedly did not want Trump to scrap Daca, including such prominent figures as House speaker Paul Ryan and Arizona senator John McCain. A prominent group of evangelical leaders wrote to Trump last month telling him that Dreamers “are leading in our churches and our communities”.