On July 16, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled that Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) “is illegal,” according to the website of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. DACA is an immigration policy that permits some people with unlawful presence in the country, who came to the U.S. as children, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to be eligible for a work permit. Local activists in Boston responded with disappointment to this decision, which does not allow new applications to be processed, although renewals are still acceptable.
“The decision is obviously a big blow to our fight for immigrant rights and eventually for citizenship for all,” said executive director of the Asian American Resource Workshop (AARW) Carolyn Chou. “DACA is one tool in a bigger struggle for a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants, but it is an important one, especially for young people. With so many Asian American undocumented immigrants, people will be impacted, and young people will be impacted. It just creates more of a culture of fear and secrecy, [with] folks feeling like they have to hide and stay underground with their status. It both has very clear implications for young people’s lives, and it also continues to perpetuate a broader sense that folks are not welcome here.”
Angela Chang is an immigrant from Taiwan, who came to the United States around 2007. She has been a DACA recipient since 2014 and recently graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston. Getting DACA was not an easy process for her – her parents, who are not proficient in English, helped her apply. While the court ruling has not affected her directly, as she is able to remain in the DACA program, she said that she has many friends who are undocumented and wanted to apply for DACA but are now unable to. A lot of people have been left “in limbo,” according to Chang.
“My first reaction was ‘not again’,” said Chang. “They’ve done [this] before, and hearing about it again on the news was devastating.” She added, “I really feel for my friends in the community who are not able to benefit from applying right now. … They’re definitely not thinking about leaving the country because they’ve lived here for so long, and they think this is basically their home. Not being able to have a proper way to work or go to school, without having to worry about a financial situation, is really hard for them. As of right now, they’re just trying to figure out what to do in the meantime, while waiting [to see if] the court ruling will go through entirely, or if there’s any other way for them to go through with the application, or if new bills are currently in process, whether that would go through.”
Daniel Pereira, communications director for the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA), said that the organization was disappointed and frustrated by the ruling and would like to see a clear pathway to citizenship for undocumented people. MIRA would support the passage of the American Dream and Promise Act, which would give Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, and Deferred Enforced Departure recipients protection from deportation and an opportunity to obtain permanent legal status if they meet certain requirements. The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 would offer an eight-year path to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants. Pereira said that MIRA would be in favor of a pathway that is inclusive of people of diverse backgrounds. Meanwhile, he added that he does not believe a criminal record should necessarily bar a person from seeking status.
“We do envision it including everyone, as I mentioned – anyone who is undocumented, TPS recipients, DACA recipients – really across the different range of origins and ways in which people live without legal status in the US,” said Pereira. “As far as the criminal aspect of it, I think that is a complicated question, but our belief is that immigrants with criminal records should not be treated differently to naturalized or born, permanent residents who have criminal records as well. … It needs to be considered carefully and on a case-by-case basis.”
Chou added that AARW supports a system that does not “leave anyone behind.”
“We just really have to push for bold solutions that do not leave folks behind,” said Chou. “Obviously, there are a lot of challenges to making that happen, but that is what we need in this next period. … We believe that everyone who lives here, who have built their lives here, deserve status and deserve a pathway to citizenship. We are looking for solutions that allow for that.”
