(Im)migration Movements & the Law

In June 2012 President Obama signed an executive order establishing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The President acted because the U.S. Congress had repeatedly failed to pass the "Dream Act" -- legislation protecting from deportation young undocumented immigrants who had been brought to the United States as children. USCIS received more than 740,000 requests from "Dreamers" applying for protection under the President's program through September 2014. Those who were approved received short-term relief from deportation, not permanent legal status. This volume is a scholarly attempt to address the question of why some age-eligible immigrants have applied for DACA status while many more -- nearly two-thirds of those estimated to be potentially eligible -- have not. The study devotes special attention to the geography of DACA -- how place of residence influences the likelihood of participation-- and the role of social networks in transmitting knowledge about the program. Qualitative interviews illuminate life after receiving DACA status. The interviewees report that DACA status has positively transformed their lives, especially in terms of educational and economic advancement. However, as a consequence of their tentative legal status, they continue to face significant limits and obstacles to full incorporation into the United States. They are eager to translate their three-year deferral of deportation into legal permanent residency, but Congress has not provided a path for doing so, and Obama's executive action can be reversed by a future President. The authors draw upon five different types of data collected for the study, including a large-scale, on-line survey of undocumented millennials; a national-level dataset on DACA applicants; survey interviews with residents of a high-emigration community in Oaxaca, Mexico and a random sample of Mexican-born persons now living in San ^Diego County; and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with undocumented youths in San Diego County who had applied for DACA. They propose fourteen policy recommendations, for increasing future participation in the DACA program and for enhancing the economic, social, and psychological integration of those who benefit from it.

"A timely and powerful chronicle of a generation's great civil rights battle as witnessed through the experiences of five young undocumented immigrants fighting to become Americans. We often call them DREAMers: young people who were brought or sent to the United States as children. They attend our local schools; work jobs that contribute to our economy. Some apply to attend university here, only to discover their immigration status when the time comes to fill out the paperwork. Without a clear path forward, and no place to return to, these young people have fought for decades to remain in the one place they call home--a nation increasingly divided over whether they should be allowed to stay. The Making of a Dream begins at the turn of the millennium, as the first of a series of "DREAM Act" proposals is introduced, and follows the efforts of policy makers, advocates, and five very different undocumented immigrant leaders to achieve some legislative reform--or at least some temporary protection. Their coming-of-age-in-America stories of love and loss intersect with the watershed political and economic events of the last two decades, including the Obama administration's landmark Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) order in 2012, and the abrupt announcement by President Trump of his plan to end it, throwing into turmoil the lives of nearly 800,000 immigrants and their families. The Making of a Dream charts the course of a social movement, with all its failures and successes, and allows us an intimate, very human view of the complexity of immigration in America. Heartbreaking and hopeful, maddening and uplifting, this ode to the legacy of the DREAM Act is a record of our times--and the definitive story of the young people of our nation who want nothing more than to be a part of it."--Jacket.

Dreams and Nightmares takes a critical look at the challenges and dilemmas of immigration policy and practice in the absence of comprehensive immigration reform. The experiences of children and youth provide a prism through which the interwoven dynamics and consequences of immigration policy become apparent. Using a unique sociolegal perspective, authors Zatz and Rodriguez examine the mechanisms by which immigration policies and practices mitigate or exacerbate harm to vulnerable youth. They pay particular attention to prosecutorial discretion, assessing its potential and limitations for resolving issues involving parental detention and deportation, unaccompanied minors, and Dreamers who came to the United States as young children. The book demonstrates how these policies and practices offer a means of prioritizing immigration enforcement in ways that alleviate harm to children, and why they remain controversial and vulnerable to political challenges.

"This manuscript asks how young people in the Latino diaspora experience and transform citizenship, examining how their participation in transnational social fields shape civic identities and sense of belonging across national and cultural communities. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the United States, El Salvador, and Madrid, the book engages young peoples' border crossings--figurative, national, and cultural--as a central object of inquiry. As the authors argue, young people in the diaspora are coming of age in an era of increasing restrictions on national boundaries in contrast to increasingly diasporic identities"--

Learn about participation in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program nationally and by state, as well as by top countries of origin. These data tools provide the numbers of DACA recipients at U.S. and state levels as of September 30, 2022 (the most recent data available from the federal government) and offer MPI's 2022 estimates of the population that would have been eligible to apply based on the program's original rules.

Federal policy on deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA) led to consideration of legislative change in states related to driver's licenses and in-state tuition.

Law School and Admissions Policies for DREAM Act Students

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, colloquially referred to as DACA, is a United States immigration policy that allows some individuals with unlawful presence in the United States after being brought to the country as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and become eligible for an employment authorization document in the U.S. To be eligible for the program, recipients cannot have felonies or serious misdemeanors on their records. Unlike the proposed DREAM Act, DACA does not provide a path to citizenship for recipients. The policy, an executive branch memorandum, was announced by President Barack Obama on June 15, 2012. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began accepting applications for the program on August 15, 2012.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told lawmakers Thursday he stands by the Trump administration decision to limit the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program following the Supreme Court's decision in June.

The ruling means immigrants protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will have to pay up to three times what they've been paying to enroll in classes starting in summer.

Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight uses statistical analysis — hard numbers — to tell compelling stories about elections, politics, sports, science, economics and lifestyle.

Being a Dreamer is.

Interviews with law students and lawyers with DACA lend insight into policy prescriptions that can support them as they pursue their careers.

Participants in the Obama-era program shielding undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation are challenging the Trump administration's latest effort to limit the program, the first targeted challenge against the full set of new rules.

By ending the DACA program, Trump is awakening the same nationwide movement that won the protections for young immigrants in the first place.

Stay informed and read the latest news today from The Associated Press, the definitive source for independent journalism from every corner of the globe.

Francisco Erwin Galicia, the Dallas-born teen who was held for nearly a month by U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is one major step...

Arizona immigrant advocates on Tuesday denounced a new Trump administration move to end DACA, the program for undocumented youth.

NPR

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Denia Perez's parents brought her from Mexico to the United States illegally when she was 11 months old...

In a rebuke to President Donald Trump's administration, a judge on Friday ordered the U.S. government to reopen to first-time applicants a program that protects from deportation and grants work permits to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who live in the United States...

Donald Trump is scrapping the Obama-era program for children brought to the US illegally. Here is everything you need to know about it

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear three consolidated cases challenging the Trump administration's decision to rescind DACA, an Obama administration...

The Supreme Court was very clear less than two months ago: President Trump broke the law when he tried to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a federal program that protects immigrants who …

ALERT: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Final Rule Effective Oct. 31, 2022.

Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad F. Wolf announced that in response to the Supreme Court’s decision, the Department of Homeland Security will take action to thoughtfully consider the future of the DACA policy, including whether to fully rescind the program.

The Department of Homeland Security today announced it will publish a notice of proposed rulemaking that would increase the integrity of the nation’s lawful immigration system, make it easier to hold immigrant sponsors accountable for failing to meet the obligations of contracts they sign with the federal government, and align agency policy in accordance with the May 2019 Presidential Memorandum on Enforcing the Legal Responsibilities of Sponsors of Aliens.

Use this form to request that we consider granting or renewing deferred action on a case-by-case basis using guidelines described in the final rule.

The Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, otherwise known as DACA, is a program that allows undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children to legally reside in the U.S.