DACA: Whats a stake?
By Carlos Rodriguez, Jesuit Volunteer/Victim Advocate
Earlier this month, on the morning of November 12, 2019, I had the privilege of standing on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court while the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was being argued. The case, a closely watched one, will impact hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients that have benefited from the practice of prosecutorial discretion. As a DACA recipient, I challenged myself to be present, travel, and witness this historic moment.
Possible outcomes of this case include:
The Supreme Court concludes that the judicial branch may not review the Trump Administration’s decision to terminate DACA.
The Court concludes that it may review the Administration’s decision to terminate DACA and holds that the termination is unlawful. This would be a win for DACA recipients.
The Court concludes that it may review the decision, and it decides that the Trump Administration’s termination of DACA is lawful.
The decision will also impact whether U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will accept initial applications (which courts thus far have refused to require) and may also decide the reinstatement of advance parole (a process that allows DACA recipients to travel abroad). The Justices may also decide how to phase out the program meaning that they could let DACA work permits simply expire or retroactively rescind them.
DACA has been a particularly popular program in the United States with only 37% of voters favoring the termination of DACA. For many us, DACA has allowed us privileges we would not have had otherwise. Having employment authorization or even having a driver’s license has eased our anxiety and fear of deportation since the program’s inception in June 2012.
Since then, many of us have graduated from colleges, started businesses, made families, and established ourselves as part of an interwoven community situated on land not originally our own. Some of us simply survived. Regardless, being placed in a situation where our culture and national origin have been, as writer Aviva Chomsky puts it, “permanently criminalized and legally excluded,” any result will simply be another round in our continued battle against the Trump Administration to prove our worthiness of remaining here.
In reflection on my way back to continue my service in Albuquerque, I was glad that I was among the many that flooded the streets, walked out of their schools, and took the time to be with one another. We mobilized, we fought for, and we won DACA ourselves—now we are continuing to fight for that dignity we deserve.
Leaving the Capitol gave me a renewed sense of dedication to the work being done in New Mexico, along the borderlands, and around the world in furtherance of justice. Fighting for DACA is not simply about that program, it's about fighting for just and humane immigration policies for all of us.
