Nebraska DACA Recipients Watch Courts and Congress

With the latest attempt at immigration legislation failing by a wide margin in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, it remains a time of great uncertainty for U.S. immigrants and immigration policy. That includes the six-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA program. This provides work permits and protection from deportation for youth brought to the U.S. illegally. There are about 3,400 DACA recipients in Nebraska, and they’re nervously waiting to find out their future.

About 40 people formed a line through the middle of the Lincoln City Council chambers last week to testify on a proposal with no meat, but a lot of message. A resolution supporting the DACA program. There were lawyers, social service workers and several DACA recipients from Lincoln.

“Every single teenager or adult DACA recipient that I've ever met is doing something to help better the community that raised and built them to be the person that they are today,” Yovana Aliaga Centon said. “DACA recipients are among the many types of immigrants who are ideal citizens.”

“We're productive members of society. Getting rid of us would impose substantial costs on employers and consumers,” Frida Aguilera said.

“I have never felt like I've milked the system,” Karina Cruz Vargas said. “I feel like I give back to my community more than my community could give back to me. I don't expect anything in return besides just being treated like an equal human being.”

What led to this discussion, and more significantly months of Congress and court fights, was repeal of the act last fall by the Trump administration, since delayed by lawsuits.

In spite of White House opposition, there often appears to be broad, even bipartisan support for DACA. All but two speakers at the Lincoln City Council meeting spoke in support of DACA. Instead of the resolution, all seven Lincoln City Council members, including three Republicans, later signed a letter supporting so-called “Dreamers.”

A recent Gallup poll found 83 percent of Americans favor or strongly favor a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients. Nebraska 2nd District representative Don Bacon has called “taking the worry of deportation permanently off the minds of DACA youth” a main goal, while another Republican, 1st District Congressman Jeff Fortenberry, said in a recent column that “provisions for DACA kids” should happen simultaneously with border wall funding.

The most recent vote on immigration legislation happened Wednesday. Both Bacon and Fortenberry voted in favor of a GOP leadership-backed bill that included a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients; Third District Representative Adrian Smith voted against the so-called compromise measure, which failed to pass by a wide margin.

“I have felt like a pawn in a political game,” Alejandra Ayotitla told the Lincoln City Council last week. “I have felt marginalized by Congress' failure to provide a permanent solution for me, and I have felt unwelcome by the comments of those who think I do not deserve to contribute to the place where I grew up.”

When she was nine, her parents brought Ayotitla from Mexico to Lincoln. Now she’s 23, a recent University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate working as a community organizer for Nebraska Appleseed and applying for law school. She has been a DACA recipient since the program started in 2012. She filed her $495 application for a two-year renewal and went through a biometrics background check this March.

“Still waiting to hear back if my case is approved. If it is approved, I would hopefully get another two-year extension that would cover me until 2021.”

As Ayotitla and I talked in a downtown Lincoln coffee shop last week, there were different immigration bills in the House and Senate, and lawsuits pending in various courts.

“So yeah, it's been very exhausting to just keep up with all of these changes and decisions, and the fights at the courts and then Congress.”

“There is about four lawsuits out there, three of which have been injunctions, that have compelled the administration to continue to accept renewals, one which possibly will lead to vacating the order which rescinded DACA,” said Josh Snowden, who watches the court cases and works with DACA applications an attorney for Omaha’s Immigrant Legal Center. “The final suit, which Nebraska is a party to, is suing to issue an injunction that the government must end DACA.”

Snowden said July 23 could be a key date for next steps in some of the court cases, and October would be the earliest any case would reach the Supreme Court.

The future of legislation addressing DACA seems just as unclear, with some lawmakers seeking a citizenship pathway for DACA recipients packaged with other immigration measures, a lack of agreement on direction between both major parties and within Republicans, and mixed messages from the White House.

Snowden said clients he works with are happy they can still renew DACA permits.

“On the other hand, I also see a lot of anxiety,” Snowden added. “A lot of people that want to go about their daily lives and plan their lives and make decisions, like should I go to college, should I buy a car, should I buy a house, should I start a small business. That's all so uncertain right now with the future of this program, that frankly (what) the future of their lives are going to be.”

While waiting to know her future, Ayotitla says she’ll continue speaking out about DACA. Reminding people that she pays taxes, she didn’t get government financial aid for college and she believes a long-broken immigration system led to her needing DACA protection and benefits in the first place.

“The other thing that I hear often is that, ‘Well why didn't you just apply for citizenship. Why didn't you just get in line?’ Well, there's no line for me to get in. There's no process to follow. That is why the immigration system is broken, because there's no path, there's no way for other people like me.

“Ideally, I want Congress to pass a permanent solution with a process towards citizenship, instead of constantly having to plan my life in two-year increments, knowing that DACA can disappear the next day,” Ayotitla added.

Whether there will soon be a permanent solution, or a definite end to DACA, rests with Congress and the courts.