FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 15, 2022
CONTACT:
Elyssa Pachico | +1 503 347 23 29 | press@alianzaamericas.org
Myneilles Negron | +1 703 585 6727 | mynellies@communicationsshop.us
June 15 marks 10 years since organizing efforts by immigrant youth resulted in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In order to build a compassionate, fair immigration system, the U.S. Congress must approve a path towards permanent residence for the nation’s 611,000 DACA recipients. In the meantime, the Biden administration must uphold protections for DACA holders by finalizing a new rule that would better shield the program from legal challenges.
“Ten years of DACA marks a decade of attacks and a decade of inaction to protect people like me,” said Dulce Dominguez, fundraising director at Alianza Americas and a DACA recipient. “Year after year, Democrats campaign on promises of permanent protections for our communities. The Democrats have the power, and it’s time for them to deliver.”
One of Biden’s earliest executive orders instructed DHS to fortify and preserve DACA, but there are ongoing battles in federal appeals court. This is because on July 16 2021, the U.S. District Court of Southern Texas held that DACA policy is “illegal.” As a result of this ongoing court battle, no new requests for DACA are being accepted at this time, and approximately 80,000 new DACA applications are currently stalled.
“The constant legal battles over DACA leaves the lives of people like me and my family in a never-ending cloud of uncertainty and dread,” said Erick Garcia, senior technologist at Alianza Americas and a DACA recipient. “My home is here, but my whole life I’ve been made to feel expendable. We need Congress to deliver expansive permanent protections that don’t leave anyone in my community behind.”
(Review Alianza Americas’ advocacy guide on the Biden-Harris administration’s advances and shortcomings so far in terms of immigration policy.)
“DACA has given me a sense of normality. This program means opportunity; it’s given me the chance to work in my career,” said Daniel Candelaria, a DACA recipient in Texas. “DACA is constant anxiety that the program will be eliminated. DACA is not enough… we need a law that gives undocumented people a path to live, to regularize their lives and becomes part of the fabric of this nation.”
Texas is one of the states that has filed suit in federal court to terminate the DACA program. There are an estimated 116,030 DACA recipients in Texas; should the program end, the state would lose an estimated $6 billion annually in gross domestic product.