Washington, DC – Fourteen years after the creation of the popular and successful Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, hundreds of thousands of Dreamers continue to live, work, and contribute in the only country many have ever known as home. Yet instead of providing certainty and a permanent solution, the Trump administration has spent the past year targeting DACA recipients, imposing new restrictions, and deliberately slowing renewals that are pushing Dreamers out of the workforce and into deportation.
Recent reporting has documented months-long DACA renewal delays that have caused recipients to lose jobs, work authorization, and financial stability despite following every requirement of the program. At the same time, the Trump administration has targeted DACA recipients for wrongful arrest, detention, and deportation while pursuing policies that strip legal protections from immigrants across multiple programs.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“DACA recipients or Dreamers — young people who came to the US as children and who are embedded in our communities — enjoy widespread support from Americans of all political backgrounds. Yet 14 years into the program, instead of a path to permanence they are facing an Administration intent on delegalizing them.
While the Trump administration proclaimed they were going after “criminals,” the fact is that they are targeting those who are trying to get right by the law. DACA recipients trusted our government and stepped forward, and now they have become another cruel target of the Trump administration’s delegalization efforts with no regard to the impact on our communities, our economy, or our families. Instead of spending billions of dollars on militarizing our communities, detaining children and families, and sending masked agents to violate our fundamental rights, this Administration should instead focus on bringing order and legality to our current system. Congress must do its job and step up and provide Dreamers with permanent protections.”
