The Vulnerable Young People Denied Access to What We Call the American Dream
As he promised during the campaign, President Donald Trump is cracking down on immigration—pledging to deport anyone who is caught without papers and creating chaos and injustice with an outrageous executive order late last week that suspends entry for all refugees for 120 days, entirely bans refugees from Syria and for 90 days bars immigrants from seven Muslim countries—Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
But so far, at least, Trump has done nothing about DACA. DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, was established by President Barack Obama’s executive order to protect adolescents and young adults—brought here by their parents when they were small children—from deportation and to allow these young adults to obtain work permits. The protection established by President Obama under DACA is for two years and is renewable.
These young people call themselves Dreamers, named for a bill introduced in Congress in 2001 by Senator Dick Durbin, a bill that has never been passed, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Bill—the DREAM Act. President Obama established DACA because Congress had never acted on the broader bill that would have expanded access to higher education by guaranteeing in-state tuition and access to federal financial aid and to scholarships at state colleges and universities.
In Sunday’s NY Times Magazine, Dale Russakoff published an extraordinary profile of one Dreamer, a young woman named Indira, who left Mexico with her parents when she was six years old. Her parents, both medical doctors in Mexico but working in menial jobs in the U.S. ever since, brought their family to the United States on an immigrant visa and never returnedThe Vulnerable Young People Denied Access to What We Call the American Dream | janresseger:
