This summer, we've been sharing stories and raising awareness around DACA, and we've been hearing a lot of the same questions: "But didn't Biden fix it?" "Why take action now?" "Isn't DACA a good thing?"
We've been holding space for the fact that two things are true - YES, DACA is a good thing, and YES, it's absolutely NOT ENOUGH.
We wanted to share these words from Kevin Sullivan, a legal assistant on our DACA team, about the legal roller coaster that DACA recipients have been due to Congress's failure to act:
"I've been working on DACA cases with Santa Fe Dreamers Project since the beginning of 2017, over half the life of DACA. While I don't have the lived experience of our Dreamer clients, I was with them during the—at the time—last month of DACA renewals in September 2017. Triple our usual number of clients renewed because they only had a one-month window to renew for another two years of DACA. Then no more DACA for them. But renewals were only for people whose permits were expiring in the next six months. No more DACA for the rest. We had one client whose card expired one day after the arbitrary six-month deadline. No more DACA for them. We had people trying to get DACA for the first time. No more DACA for people like them.
And it wasn't just the loss of work authorization. It was, and is, also protection from deportation. Would their information, including the names of their undocumented parents on the required birth certificates, be turned over to ICE? If DACA was over, who knew?
The courts brought back DACA in early 2018 but only for renewals. Still no more DACA for first-time applicants. Then DACA renewals, including ones already being processed, became for only one year instead of two (same $495 filing fee, though). Then the courts undid that.
In addition, cases are supposed to be approved (or not) within 120 days of submission, with the permit received within 150 days of submission. But the agency for a while was taking 164 days just to approve many cases. Some clients lost their jobs at least temporarily while waiting for more DACA.
The courts finally brought back first-time DACA in December of 2020. In 2021 we struggled to keep up with the flood of new clients who needed to produce 14 years of evidence of physical presence in the U.S.—since June 15, 2007 (five years before DACA started). We were able to get only a small number of cases approved and many others submitted before the courts took away DACA again in July 2021 but gave a temporary reprieve for renewals. Now the federal courts have an appeal of that last decision and another case ongoing.
It seems like every month or so for the last year someone asks us if first-time DACA cases are being approved again, and we have to give them the bad news that Nothing Has Changed.
I've gotten to see DACA clients go from high school to college to working full-time, single to married, no kids to kids. They're people living their lives in the country they grew up in. Dreamers are clearly resilient, but having this uncertainty is no way for people to live. They contribute labor and tax dollars and volunteer work and random acts of kindness, including as essential workers during this pandemic.
Dreamers need more. Dreamers deserve more. Congress must give them more. We need a permanent solution with permanent residency (green cards) and a path to U.S. citizenship for those who want it. DACA was always intended as temporary relief until Congress improved our immigration laws. That time is now. The U.S. Senate needs to pass the American Dream and Promise Act that the House of Representatives passed in 2021. Then President Biden needs to sign it into law.
It's time to say "No More DACA."
Because we've created something better."
