What's Going to Happen to DACA?

Picture a house. The house is built on a shaky foundation. The exterior is run down, the roof is filled with holes, the wood frame is starting to rock, the floors creak. Being inside of it, surrounded by all its problems, creates a constant state of unease. It feels like it might collapse at any moment, like from one second to the next, it might crumble and bury everyone that lives here under the rubble. In spite of everything wrong with it, this decrepit,

I'm Patti Rodriguez. This is Out of the Shadows, a podcast about America's tangled history of immigration. Last season, we tackled Ronald Reagan's nineteen eighty six Amnesty Act. This season, we're tracing the origins of DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a contentious executive order to protect undocumented young people from being.

Deported issued by former President Barack Obama in twenty twelve. DACA was meant to be a temporary stop gap on a broken immigration system. It was like putting a bucket under a leaky roof, But with multiple Supreme Court challenges and looming presidential elections, the root feels like it may collapse at any moment, impacting the US economy and a American culture as we know it. Meanwhile, the future of millions of lives aims in the balance.

Welcome to Out of the Shadows Dreamers. If you look at DACA as just the program created by President Obama, it's hard to see the deep history of social organizing that went down behind the scenes. The aim of this season was to get people to understand that DOACA only exists because of the efforts of the dreamer movement. The only problem is that doaca's future isn't promised. For all their years of strategy and protesting, the government responded with

Getting DACA accomplished started for me at least in that huge wave of immigration protests and around two thousand and six.

That's Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro who believes the two thousand and six marches laid the seeds for the dreamer movement.

If you remember, there were hundreds of thousands of people that showed up in cities like Los Angeles and Dallas and so many other places, and it was young people. I mean, it was like heavily young people that were

That view is echoed by Maria Inhosa, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalists and hosts of Latino USA.

What this country witnessed with the movement of the Dreamers really is extraordinary. It is not, in any way, shape or form given the credit that it deserves in terms of being an essential part of the greater civil rights movement of the United States of America. What these young people did by putting themselves on the line literally, it was following in the footsteps of great civil rights activists of our time.

The road to Dhaka was paved by years of organizing, years of commanding people to pay attention to the plight of young immigrants, students we know today as Dreamers. When the Dream Act failed through the late two thousand into the twenty tents, it sparked a movement of young undocumented immigrants demanding to be recognized. They forced the public to understand the Dreamers are American. They proclaimed that this is their country and it is the only home they know.

Dreamers put their safety on the line, crashing the offices of politicians like John McCain and eventually President Obama. Dreamers were crafty. They quickly figured out how to strategize and use public attention to prevent removal proceedings. There was safety in visibility. They kept the pressures so high for years that something needed to be done, and by twenty twelve Obama issued DACA. But DACA didn't magically solve all the Dreamers' problems.

Now we're in twenty twenty three, eleven years of DOCA, One common issue is that recipients have a hard time getting health insurance, especially those that lost their jobs during the pandemic. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, thirty four percent of DOCA beneficiaries don't have insurance. As a response, President Joe Biden announced in April twenty twenty three that federal health care services will expand to

So today my administration is announcing our plan to expand health coverage for DOCA recipients by allowing them to roll on a plan.

Through the Affordable Care Act or through Medicaid.

Healthcare should be right, not a privilege.

The truth is that even though DOCA came back to life End for good more on that after the break.

In June of twenty twenty three, even though the Supreme Court held that Texas doesn't have the standing to sue over Biden's immigration policy, DACA isn't safe. Cases challenging DACA are moving through the system seemingly every year, and in twenty twenty four there will be another presidential election. Who knows what another president might do if elected. We need Congress to pass legislation, and Congressman Castro is optimistic, but I.

Do think that there was an expectation that Congress would get it done, and then Congress failed to get it done. You know, even though for Dreamers, you've got ninety percent of the country that supports their path to citizenship, you know, and so to me, it's as much an indictment as anything of the political system and of Congress as anything else.

It's pretty wild to think that all that public struggle the Dreamers went through, all that energy poured into stopping deportations and getting people to care about immigration, could vanish in an instant if DACA goes away. And what's worse, Erica and Iola, one of the Dreamers who fought to get DOCA passed. Here's the immigrant rights movement is slowing down.

I think even though we have a huge sort of ecosystem and the imigrant rights movement, I think we're still we're missing, you know, the the ability to organize the immigrant community, to get people to really stand up and improve to this country that we are human.

The conversation around immigration continues to be polarizing and fixed on issues at the border.

We have been losing the narrative so much because I mean, we had a person in power for four years who I mean it was his daily routine literally to talk about how immigrants are harmful to this country and shifted the entire focus. And it's unfortunate because immigration is so much more than that. Immigration is visa holders, it's undocumented people, it's refugees, is I mean, anything that the immigration system

But Erica does hang on to a liver of optimism.

I do have hope that we have a new movement that searches, that emerges at some point that can create that narrative shift. But right now I think it's just been really, really hard, because, yeah, the narrative has been shifted so much more completely into the border.

There's one question that's important to consider, how do organizers feel about DOTCA in twenty twenty three. They're the ones who fought to get us here, and even though it's not perfect, what's it worth it?

Not to be too egotistical or anything about it, but it's just easier to be a part of the Peanut Gallery than to sort of be like trashed and tarnished, and then people still want to replicate the strategies and the work without really understanding behind the scenes.

That's more of the Lahy the dream nine. He's understandably upset that DOCA didn't go far enough, but also feels like the Dreamers don't get enough credit for doing what they did to create it.

My overall assessment is a lot of people copied and replicated our work and they have not gone further than we left them. Everybody still to this day and age, is replicating the same deportation campaigns or actions that we did. When we did bring them home, Guties's office gave us so much shit, and then three months later they replicated bring them home with their own constituents.

I think it could have been so much more, and it just it was very limited.

Lizabeth Matteo, another member of the Dream nine, has mixed feelings about DACA.

Some people have made amazing careers, have built amazing careers because they're able to work legally, so I can't be too mad at the program. So I do hope that it stays. But I do hope that also young people that are doctor recipients and those that are not doctor recipients understand that this will never be about ten years

She agrees with Erica about the current status of the immigration rights movement.

So we have to organize, they have to get involved. I don't see the same level of organized see that is so many years ago. And I hope that I'm I'm mistaken.

I hope that there's people out there planning something that's going to shake everything up and make the changes that we need to see in the legal system.

Alina Ronnie, author of Crossing Borders, believes that there is a legal solution out there.

From a political perspective, and I think, you know, as a movement, we have we have more allies than we realize. We just have to we have to engage them. And I think that.

We've got to do that.

With the greater level of urgency as a movement, we could have been more savvy and sophisticated about sitting down with people and helping people understand that, Okay, Trump may be gone, but this is an issue that still needs to be resolved, and we need to resolve that ultimately in a bipartisan way.

The last time immigration reform came from Congress back in nineteen eighty six, it was a bipartisan effort. Nearly three million people got a path to a green card and even citizenship with our goal that was almost forty years ago.

The system is broken and we need to change the system.

That's renowned journalist Hojote Ramos. He's seen the fight for immigration from the front lines as a reporter and news anchor, and it's been a rough view. Ramos believes DAGA needs to go further because it doesn't even begin to address the problem with our current immigration system.

Instead of accepting one million legal immigrants a year, we need to go to two million immigrants a year or maybe more because the way the system is working right now is leaving many who deserve to be in this country, who are hiding, who are fearing persecution in the country of origin, out of the system.

One place the broken immigration system seems to always be a shit show is Florida, especially now that Florida Man is the governor there.

We believe that borders matter, and we have fought against illegal immigration in the state of Florida, from banning sanctuary cities to suing the Biden a minute fustration over its catch and release policies, to transporting illegal aliens to sanctuary jurisdictions. We have put Floridians first and we will continue to do that.

More on that. After the break.

In twenty twenty three, just as he was considering a run for president, Florida Governor Ron de Santis signed SB seventeen eighteen, which targets on documented immigrants. They're families, friends, and anyone who helps them out. Here's doctor, lawyer Luis Cortes Romero.

They have effectively made it a criminal penalty for not just for the immigrants themselves to be there and to work, to work if they have status they don't have status, but also to anybody who gives them a ride and transports them, anybody who hires them. Like it's a really

That paranoia led many Latinos to leave the state.

We saw like the mass exoduses that happened when people left, and you know, it has a wide ripple effect. I hear a lot of people talk about just leaving and self supporting because they're scared and they're nervous and they don't know what to do. They're leaving to other states and trying to kind of restart.

Because of the reaction by people to the Florida bill, Louise says it could actually help the cause in the long run.

What's interesting about Florida is that I think we're going to see what the potentially unintended consequences were from this legislature.

I know that a.

Lot of its labor force has left. There's a lot of agricultural work in Florida that seems to be suffering, a lot of construction work that seems to be suffering, and so I'm very curious to see at what point

Raquel Fedan on this, a lawyer and immigration advocate, had to change her travel plans to Florida after hearing about the news.

Latinos love to go to Florida. I mean one of the main questions that I've received me being from North Carolina. I go to church and every Sunday, you know, I get questions from people like, hey, we have this trip planned to Disney World, or you know, we have this trip plan, we have the flights booked and everything like should I go to Florida.

Raquel says people with immigrant families or friends, or who are immigrants themselves are right to be worried about going to Florida. With SB seventeen eighteen in place.

It's definitely one of the biggest anti immigrant bills that have become law in the entire.

History of immigration.

And it's something that's truly scary. Because Governor DeSantis is running for president in twenty twenty.

Four, she thinks it's time we call on celebrities to be vocal about this issue.

My call is for greater celebrities to be able to also use their platforms and boycott Florida, boycott Florida products in order to show the power that we have. And you know what, do some people care about Some people don't want to hear our stories, but some people will care about how this affects the economy and DOCA recipients. They definitely contribute to the economy. Immigrants, whether documented or undocumented, contribute to the economy of Florida and every single state.

But Florida isn't the only state targeting immigrants.

There's other states who are passing like licensing legislature where folks with our status can get licenses, driver's licenses and different things like that. So the states really are coming in pretty hard, I think as a reaction to President Biden.

Biden is up for reelection in twenty twenty four and he could lose to someone like DeSantis or even Trump. Eleven years of living in limbo has a way of chipping away at your mental.

To be honest with you, I try not to check that often on like that outdates. It's such an overwhelming thought for me to even think about what would happen if they do do away with it and I'm unable to work, and what would that mean in my life? What would I have to you know, do or whatnot that I try not to really think about it that much because it becomes sort of like paralyzing you.

Know, that's film critic Carlos Aguilar.

Again.

For a second, I allowed myself to be very hopeful. I was like, Okay, Biden got elected, It's gonna happen.

Unfortunately, mo abd Lahi doesn't have a lot of hope.

During the Trump administration, we won deferred action on seven different cases all throughout the time that everyone was saying, we're all hope, we're hopeless, we're lost, we need to resist. It was the most backward logic that could have existed, and that's just unfortunately the reality that we live in. So immigrants are fucked and there's no chance for immigration reform.

For Louis who fought in court and won major cases and smaller ones for documented immigrants like himself. He sees the incremental change that's important.

One thing thing I lose said on is is that although there hasn't been quite a lot of progress in the legal sphere of immigrants rights, right, we haven't had a big change in laws in a while. In a long while, there has been progress being made. I think more socially, people know what dreamers are. If you tell someone's dreamer, I think is a pretty well known word.

Now.

I'm familiar with kind of the critiques of the dreamer narrative and how the complications of that, But I think really my broader point is is that the social discussion around immigrants has progressed and quite significantly, and I think that that's a step in the right direction. Of course, we're going to need the loss to back that up. I try to be mindful of those progresses too.

A decade ago, Luis's status meant that he wouldn't be able to practice law. He knows what it's like to have little hope.

They kept telling me you're not gonna be able to practice. Things seem really bleak, then too, really bleak then too.

But these days, now that he's a practicing lawyer, thinks to DACA. He wants to amplify hope.

I want to make sure that I'm inspiring doing things that make things hopeful, and that continues, uh, you know, picking a fight withather needs to be picked, and being rebellious when you need to be rebellious. And and so I've been on a perspective where things seem pretty bleak, and then I end up arguing at the Supreme Court. Right, So so.

I have I have.

That's where my hope comes in, you know, and I think maybe I'm just too much of an optimist.

DOCCA holder and small business owner Roller Fo Barrientos also hangs on to hope.

If you, as a DACA recipient, I here making it whatever it is that you're doing it, you are super valuable. You have demonstrated that there are very few things that can stop you because you have gone through so much and you've still endured and you still hear and you're still persevering. And I want to remind every DACA recipient, every immigrant out there, that we're incredibly strong, and sometimes we forget about that because we're still stuck in what other people think about us.

My buddy Eric Guerta was a pioneer of the Dreamer movement and the fight for DACA, and now thanks to that movement, he's able to let the fight go a bit.

There's there's sometimes no other way to get through things without hope. But once you get to a certain age, once you get you know, to a certain place in your life where you feel.

You don't need that anymore.

You can be your own hope, you can do things for yourself, and you have a community and a net world that supports you. Then you know, you kind of start leaving hope behind as like something that you had when you were a young person, because that's a time when you needed it.

I have to admit that when it comes to our country's broken immigration system, I still need to have hope, hope for it, and especially hope for the dreamer that this unstable stop gap measured DACA can hold. It's wild, honestly, how people like Wedetta and Luis and Rololofo and Erica and Moe and Elizabeth, all the Dreamers, even that fool John Lennon, We're all part of daca's history, like it just has to survive. It means too much to this country, to our society.

If we really are as John F. Kennedy said, quoting Jesus, a city upon a hill, a beacon of hope to the world. It's time we fix a crumbling foundation. It's time we honor the dreamers and give them a pathway to citizenship, because it is our human right to fly freely across borders like monarch butterflies and search for dreams and hope. Out of the shadows. Dreamers is a Semelo