With less than a week before the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) case heads to the Supreme Court, leading outlets are previewing what’s at stake if the conservative majority Supreme Court panel choose to terminate DACA — the futures and opportunities of nearly 700,000 contributors to workplaces and communities across the country.
In these uncertain times, the New York Times uplifts three Dreamers’ stories and highlights the American dream they would be forced to give up if DACA protections ended.
In a New York Times article entitled, “They Achieved the American Dream. Will the Supreme Court Let Them Keep It?,” Miriam Jordan notes the traumatic change that immigrants Jorge Alvarez and Evelyn Duron would have to endure after building a life in America.
What if DACA is cancelled? “We wouldn’t be able to work,” Jorge said. “We’d probably have to file for bankruptcy.” They’d lose the house. They try not to think about that.
Sara Aridi for the New York Times, highlights a DACA recipient once fearful of discussing her immigration status, now emboldened to tell her story and advocate for others. Aridi writes:
Before Ms. Galicia enrolled in college, a friend told her she could defer her tuition payments until after graduation. When she tried to enroll for a second semester, she learned that was not the case. Because she was undocumented, she would have had to pay roughly $2,300 in fees — an amount she could not afford. So she dropped out and focused on work… Ms. Galicia has since made plans to apply for financial aid and to continue her communications studies. Her goal as a journalist, she said, is to cover issues that affect immigrants.
While Dreamers’ lives are at risk, Americans nationwide will also feel this everlasting effect if DACA is overturned, especially because so many DACA recipients work in health care.
As David Skorton, a cardiologist, states in an op-ed for the Washington Post,
…it’s not only their lives that hang in the balance. DACA recipients also play an essential role in our health-care system.Today there are approximately 27,000 doctors, nurses, dentists, physician assistants and other health-care workers whose DACA status allows them to work and contribute to patient care…Excluding these talented individuals from the workforce would do more than simply thwart their professional aspirations. It would also deprive a huge number of Americans of accessing quality care. In fact, research indicates that the physicians and trainees who stand to lose their eligibility if DACA is eliminated would, collectively, serve as many as 5.1 million patients over the course of their careers.
