The nation marked a bittersweet anniversary this week as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program turned 9 years old.
On one hand, it was a moment to celebrate DACA, a fair and responsible policy that established protections for hundreds of thousands of undocumented children who were brought to the U.S. when their parents immigrated here. That includes an estimated 13,000 people in Nevada.
But the anniversary also offered a reminder that these protections remain temporary, due to the anti-immigrant stance of the right.
It’s appalling that nine years after DACA’s creation, the nation’s lawmakers haven’t established a pathway for Dreamers to obtain permanent citizenship status. Rather, DACA lives on as an executive order that, as we saw during the last presidential administration, is precarious. Former President Donald Trump tried to end it, but fortunately the U.S. Supreme Court preserved DACA by ruling that his attempt to quash it was unlawful.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it — DACA is once again facing a legal challenge over whether its creation was legal. That case is in federal court in Texas.
Enough. This racist opposition to the policy is a stain on our nation and an echo of low moments in our history when we embraced the exclusion of Blacks, Asians, Jews and other minorities.
America is better than to turn away immigrant children who had no say in whether they were brought here.
In many cases, these children have few or no ties to their parents’ home countries. Instead, they were brought here very young and grew up as Americans in every respect — attending schools, developing social networks, joining faith communities, getting jobs, paying taxes, contributing to their communities, etc. And considering that their families face deportation and separation, they tend to strictly follow the law and play by the rules in order to stay off the radar.
The only thing separating them from the U.S. citizens they grew up with is a piece of paper.
Americans get it when it comes to DACA, with poll after poll showing support for the policy. That includes a majority of Republicans. A Pew Research poll from last summer showed that 74% of Americans overall supported legal status for Dreamers, including 54% of respondents who identified as Republicans.
That sentiment is shared by a large group of national leaders as well. President Joe Biden, in one of his first official acts, issued an order reinstituting DACA, and the U.S. House recently approved a measure to establish a pathway to permanent legal status for DACA recipients.
But the House bill has hit a wall in the Senate, where it’s opposed by Republicans who either embrace the party’s racist policies or are too cowardly to rub against the grain.
To their credit, Southern Nevada’s congressional delegates are lockstep in support of Dreamers. This week, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., organized several of her colleagues, including Sen. Jacky Rosen, to sign on to a letter questioning U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services about delays in DACA application processing. Cortez Masto stated in a tweet that the Trump administration had caused an “extreme backlog” in processing.
“Dreamers are our friends and neighbors,” Cortez Masto tweeted. “These delays have made it impossible for many to work and support their families. While we continue negotiating a bipartisan immigration bill with a path to citizenship for Dreamers, we must make sure the DACA program is actually working.”
Agreed.
Meanwhile, it’s imperative for Nevadans to keep fighting for DACA, whether they’re policy leaders or voters selecting candidates.
As Las Vegas City Councilwoman Olivia Diaz said Tuesday during a community event marking the anniversary, “It’s long overdue for Congress to act now and stop using Dreamers as a political football.”
Indeed, this is no game. It’s a matter of providing fair treatment to our neighbors and upholding our American principle that inclusion of law-abiding, productive individuals from around the planet makes us stronger.