Congress needs to do its job and protect Dreamers

BY DIANA PLIEGO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 10/31/22 
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

Getty Images

As a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, recipient, I felt immense relief in June 2020 when the Supreme Court ruled that DACA could stay in place. Several months before, as lawyers argued the case, thousands of immigrant youth leaders and allies rallied in front of the Court, chanting “home is here!” Uncertain about our futures, and with our livelihoods on the line, we came together to show the world that our community is united, powerful, and undeterred, even when the odds are stacked against us. 

I wish I could say that uncertainty has faded since we won at the Supreme Court. I wish I could say Congress realized that the stakes were too high to leave our fate to the whims of another court decision or more empty promises. But now — a decade after DACA was created as a temporary fix — it is urgent for Members of Congress to do their jobs and pass a permanent solution to provide the stability we need to chart our futures in the U.S., the only home many of us have ever known. 

I work for the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the same organization that was involved in drafting the original Dream Act more than 20 years ago. Year after year, and in court case after court case, my colleagues and I advocate for the future of thousands of DACA recipients and millions more who, like me, live in constant uncertainty. 

I was born in Mexico and came to the U.S. with my mom and brothers to reunite with my dad when I was three years old. Eventually we settled in South Carolina, where I ultimately went to college. Before DACA, I lived in fear of being deported to a country I didn’t know. At 17, my life changed when President Obama announced DACA. With DACA, I could continue my education, build a career, and help support my family.

Most importantly, getting DACA reaffirmed what I knew: My home is here. 

The U.S. is home to hundreds of thousands of immigrant youth who grew up and have built a life here, but currently have no pathway to become U.S. citizens. Every two years, we submit our renewal applications and hope the policy will last long enough to renew again.

We are not the only ones who stand to lose if DACA goes away. Around 300,000 children born in the U.S. have at least one DACA recipient parent; 76 percent of us DACA recipients have an immediate family member who is a U.S. citizen. Beyond our loved ones, our communities count on 343,000 essential workers with DACA, and the government collects $6.2 billion from us in federal taxes. 

Yet, despite our contributions, despite the lives we’ve built for ourselves and our loved ones, politically motivated court cases put our future in this country in question. Pundits play political games with our lives and livelihoods. Politicians save face with promises they have yet to keep. And Congress kicks the can down the road on passing the solution we’ve been demanding since before DACA’s inception. Once again, the fate of thousands hangs in the balance. 

In early October, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that deemed DACA unlawful. The ruling allows DACA renewals to continue temporarily and sent the case back to the lower court to consider the Biden administration’s recent DACA regulation, which is set to go into effect on Oct. 31 — for now.

We call on Congress to think for a moment about what it must feel like to walk in our shoes. Imagine the fear of having your future in the hands of strangers, politicians, judges and politically motivated lawsuits. Imagine the fear of one day losing your home, your country, your community. Imagine living your life in two-year increments. 

Our lives remain in limbo because of Congress’s inaction and indifference. Why must we fight so hard for lawmakers to see our humanity? 

Their constituents see it: A Pew Research Center survey shows that 74 percent of Americans support a law that provides permanent legal status to immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. 

We need a permanent legislative solution for immigrant youth. We need a pathway to citizenship. Even from the very beginning, over 10 years ago, DACA was always a temporary measure. For true stability and security, Congress must act. Congress must do its job and pass permanent protections that put us on a pathway to citizenship because our home is here, and we are here to stay.

Diana Pliego is a policy associate at the National Immigration Law Center, where she works on a range of issues, including protection for DACA recipients and fighting immigration enforcement. She conducts policy research, analyzes and tracks legislation, and develops materials for movement and field partners as well as for congressional advocacy. She is a DACA recipient.

DACA recipients will now be eligible for federal health care coverage under new Biden rule

Over 100,000 young immigrants without health insurance will now be able to buy affordable health care through the plan, the administration estimates.

Demonstrators in Los Angeles rally in support of DACA recipients on the day the Supreme Court heard arguments in the DACA case in 2019.Mario Tama / Getty Images file

May 3, 2024, 
By Nicole Acevedo


More than 100,000 young immigrants protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will soon become eligible to receive federal health care coverage for the first time since DACA was implemented over a decade ago.

The Biden administration will announce a new federal rule Friday allowing DACA recipients to enroll in a qualified health plan through the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplace or become eligible for coverage through a basic health program.

An estimated 580,000 young adults who lack legal immigration status and have lived in the U.S. since they were children are currently working or studying without fear of deportation under DACA. An overwhelming majority of DACA recipients were born in Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Even though the program has helped them access better-paying jobs and educational opportunities since it was first implemented in 2012, DACA beneficiaries had been barred from accessing federally funded health insurance despite contributing billions in federal taxes, pouring funds into the nation’s federal health insurance system for years.

While many DACA recipients get health insurance through their jobs, more than a quarter are estimated to currently be uninsured.

By implementing a federal rule expanding the definition of “lawful presence” to include DACA recipients, they are “no longer excluded from receiving coverage from a quality health plan and financial assistance as well,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters in a press call Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that over 100,000 young immigrants who lack health insurance will now have a shot at accessing affordable health care.

“DACA recipients are currently three times more likely to be uninsured than the general U.S. population, and individuals without health insurance are less likely to receive preventative or routine health screenings. They delay necessary medical care, and they incur higher costs and debts when they do finally see care,” Becerra said, adding the new expansion “will improve their health and will strengthen the health and well-being of our nation.”

The new federal rule does not make DACA recipients eligible for the Medicaid program, according to senior administration officials, but gives them coverage through the Affordable Care Act and its marketplaces and financial assistance programs.

The announced rule is expected to go into effect Nov. 1, which coincides with the Affordable Care Act’s open enrollment period for 2025 health insurance plans, allowing newly eligible DACA recipients to have access to federal health care as early as December, according to HHS.

Friday’s announcement comes about a year after President Joe Biden first announced his administration’s plan to expand health care coverage to DACA recipients. The administration’s original plan aimed to implement the federal rule by November 2023.

Senior administration officials declined to comment this week on why the implementation of the rule was delayed.

However, White House domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden stressed that “the president will continue to fight” for DACA recipients, adding that “only Congress can provide them permanent status and a pathway to citizenship.”

While the program has been around for a decade, it faced legal challenges during the Trump administration and from Republican-led states. DACA has been closed to new registrants since July 2021 as lawsuits challenging the program continue making their way through the courts.

For more from NBC Latino, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Nicole Acevedo is a reporter for NBC News Digital. She reports, writes and produces stories for NBC Latino and NBCNews.com.

Democrats Are Calling For An Investigation Into The Trump Administration Denying DACA Recipients Federally Backed Housing Loans

“The facts are clear: HUD officials implemented a secret policy change to discriminate against DACA recipients," Sen. Bob Menendez said.

Nidhi Prakash BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on June 9, 2020, at 9:01 a.m. ET


Mandel Ngan / Getty Images
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, June 25, 2019.

A group of Democrats in Congress are asking the federal housing agency’s inspector general to investigate why federal housing officials have told lenders to deny DACA recipients government-backed home loans, and why agency officials misled Congress and the public about the policy.

A letter making the request to the Department of Housing and Urban Development Inspector General Rae Oliver Davis was signed by 13 Senate and 32 House Democrats, headed up by Sen. Bob Menendez, Rep. Pete Aguilar, and Rep. Juan Vargas. It comes in response to a BuzzFeed News’ report last week, which revealed that Department of Housing and Urban Development officials did make a policy change to exclude DACA recipients from home loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration while denying that there had been a change to the public and to Congress.

“Specifically we are concerned that HUD imposed a new, nonpublic, and legally erroneous policy prohibiting the issuance of FHA-insured loans to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and knowingly misrepresented to Congress the implementation and enforcement of this new policy,” they wrote in the letter.

BuzzFeed News initially reported that DACA recipients and their mortgage lenders were being told they were no longer eligible for the program, which they had been able to access for years until the Trump administration moved to rescind DACA in 2017.

On several instances after BuzzFeed News published that story, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and other housing officials assured members of Congress in public hearings and in private meetings that there had been no policy change.

“The facts are clear: HUD officials implemented a secret policy change to discriminate against DACA recipients. HUD failed to disclose this change publicly and misrepresented that a change in policy had occurred in Congressional hearings, letter responses, and briefings to Congressional staff,” Menendez told BuzzFeed News in a statement on Monday.

”This is wrong and unacceptable. We are requesting that HUD’s Inspector General investigate potential violations of federal law and failure to disclose this policy change to Congress," Menendez said.

Carson told members of Congress last year that after reading the initial story from BuzzFeed News, he had “asked around” his department.

“No one was aware of any changes that had been made to the policy whatsoever. I’m sure we have plenty of DACA recipients who have FHA-backed loans,” he said during testimony before a House committee in April last year, well after the emails obtained by BuzzFeed News show that officials within the agency had decided to exclude DACA recipients.

“It’s unacceptable for the Trump Administration to secretly change the rules to stop DACA recipients from achieving the dream of home ownership. It’s equally unacceptable that the HUD Secretary would lie to Congress about the Trump Administration’s discriminatory housing practices," Aguilar told BuzzFeed News in a statement.

In December 2018, Sens. Menendez, Cory Booker, and Catherine Cortez Masto wrote to HUD officials asking why federal housing officials told lenders to deny DACA recipients government-backed home loans.

Responding to that letter, HUD’s Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations Len Wolfson wrote, “[t]he Department wants to be very clear that it has not implemented any policy changes during the current Administration, either formal or informal, with respect to FHA eligibility requirements for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. HUD has longstanding policy regarding eligibility for non-U.S. citizens without lawful residency. Those policies have not been altered.”

In another exchange of letters, Wolfson wrote in July last year that HUD “has not implemented any policy changes during the current Administration with respect to FHA eligibility requirements for DACA recipients.”

"HUD chose to exclude lawful homebuyers from accessing FHA-backed home loans,” said Vargas in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “DREAMers earned the right to buy a home as taxpaying participants in our country’s labor force.”

In their letter to the inspector general on Tuesday, Democrats pointed to Wolfson’s responses, Carson’s testimony, and the internal documents and emails that show that a specific decision was made to interpret a requirement for legal residency for the loans to exclude DACA recipients.

“The above timeline and documents demonstrate what we believe was a change of policy without sound and unambiguous legal reasoning, without an opportunity for public input under Section 553 of the APA, and without communication to FHA-approved lenders and Congress,” they wrote.

MORE ON DACA AND HOUSING
The Trump Administration Said It Didn’t Change Policy To Deny Housing Loans To DACA Recipients. Emails Show Otherwise.

Nidhi Prakash · June 4, 2020

Nidhi Prakash is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, DC.

As elected Republicans continue effort to kill DACA, most Americans support continuing program


Gabe Ortiz
Daily Kos Staff
Friday October 28, 2022 · 

Oscar Barrera-Gonzalez (L) receives help from volunteer Ivan Corpeno in filing his application for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program at Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles on Aug. 15, 2012, in Los Angeles, California.

Republicans’ efforts to kill the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and deport young undocumented immigrants overwhelmingly fly in the face of public opinion. New Data for Progress polling shows that voters support continuing the popular and successful policy by a nearly 30-point margin, 58%-31%.

Support is strongest among Democrats, at 79%, followed by independents, at 58%. “Though a slight majority of Republicans oppose continuing DACA, 37 percent support keeping it in place,” Data for Progress said. Elected Republicans led by very corrupt Texas attorney general Ken Paxton have been steadily working to end the successful and popular immigration program through the courts. Currently, no new applications are being accepted.

“Though DACA is a critical program for young immigrants, it is only a temporary solution,” Data for Progress said. Its polling shows that voters also strongly support permanent relief.

RELATED STORY: Thousands of teachers could be pushed out of their jobs due to GOP litigation seeking to end DACA

“Meanwhile, the American Dream and Promise Act, passed by the House of Representatives in 2021, would provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers,” Data for Progress said. “By a +32-point margin, voters back a policy to provide DACA recipients the opportunity to gain U.S. citizenship.”

Support is strongest from Democrats, again at 79%. Support from independents ticks slightly up from DACA, at 59%. Support from Republicans also goes up, to 43% compared to DACA’s 37%.

“Protecting Dreamers is also politically popular. A plurality of voters (47 percent), including 57 percent of Latina/o voters, say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports a path to citizenship for DACA recipients. Only 29 percent of voters say this would make them less likely to vote for that candidate, while 24 percent state it would not impact their decision.”

A second poll that was conducted by Democratic and Republican firms and released by immigration reform advocacy group FWD.us this week also shows strong support for a package that pairs permanent protections for DACA recipients with border security. “By a 50-point margin, voters support the proposed legislation (71% support / 21% oppose) with a plurality (45%) strongly supporting.” What that “border security” would look like when the number of border agents has already doubled from 2003 is unclear, and could hurt border communities affected by border militarization even more.

But following a conservative appeals court ruling that sent the DACA case back to anti-immigrant Texas judge Andrew Hanen, affected individuals said lawmakers must do their jobs and come together to figure out and pass legislative relief by year’s end.

“Right now, Congress needs to cut a bi-partisan deal and pass immigration legislation in 2022, that means averting the weekly loss of 5,000 work authorizations from DACA recipients over the next two years should the program be terminated,” DACA recipients Erika Andiola and Astrid Silva wrote at Univision. “Congressional staffers should the Fifth Circuit ruling as a wake-up call and ensure their bosses (whether they’re seeking re-election or not) do not waste any (and perhaps the only) opportunity to pass immigration legislation—including the upcoming lame duck session of Congress.”

Among the thousands of DACA beneficiaries who will lose their relief every week when Republicans end DACA through the courts and if Congress doesn’t act are 9,000 educators. Republicans are trying to force thousands of teachers out of their jobs as the nation also faces a teacher shortage.

Maria Rocha has taught students pre-K through sixth grade and worked as a nanny and housekeeper before becoming an educator. She told Bloomberg that she “saw the lack of teachers that looked like me, that were from my community, that related to the students. There’s a science behind teaching. I’m fascinated with teaching kids how to say thank you, how to blow your nose, how to start reading.”

Dreamers urge for protections in Senate hearing on immigrant youth

Young immigrants who have been shut out of DACA point to the program's success in an attempt to garner bipartisan support for "a path to U.S. citizenship."

Immigration rights activists rally in front of the Supreme Court in 2019. 

Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images file


May 8, 2024, 
By Nicole Acevedo

NBC

As immigration policies take center stage in the nation’s political debate and the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program remains uncertain, senators are holding a hearing Wednesday on the "urgent need to protect immigrant youth," according to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The occasion has prompted 1,636 scholars and alumni of TheDream.US, an organization helping DACA recipients and other undocumented immigrant youths known as Dreamers go to college, to sign a letter urging Congress to "provide us with the opportunity to pursue a path to U.S. citizenship naturalization."

"Such action will provide certainty to our families and communities and strengthen our nation’s economy by ensuring the future of a vital, vibrant workforce," the letter, first shared with NBC News, reads.

Other organizations such as evangelical and educational groups have also shared letters of support ahead of the hearing.

Gaby Pacheco, an education leader and president of TheDream.US, is one of five witnesses expected to speak at the hearing. She will be advocating for legislation that would give a pathway to legalization to young immigrant adults who've spent most of their lives in the U.S., something that polls have shown has broad support.

"The reality is that more than ever, without bipartisanship, we're not going to be able to get anything done," Pacheco told NBC News in a phone interview ahead of her testimony.

But achieving the much-needed bipartisanship may be more challenging now than ever before, said Pacheco, a former DACA recipient who has advocated for Dreamers her entire life.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, opened the hearing focusing on the contributions of Dreamers and DACA recipients. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the ranking member, responded saying that fixing DACA “is not my concern right now” because his priority is solving the “complete, utter disaster” riddling the border and U.S. immigration policies.

Graham added that legalizing Dreamers sends others the message “to keep coming” and will worsen the current immigration crisis.

The senators’ differing stances are a departure from their bipartisan efforts just a year ago when they both introduced the Dream Act of 2023, which would have allowed Dreamers to earn lawful permanent residence.

Immigration has increasingly become a flashpoint for politicians on both sides of the aisle ahead of the November presidential election, with Republicans overwhelmingly pointing to selected instances of undocumented noncitizens charged with murder and other serious crimes to push for hard-line immigration policies, while Democrats decry such efforts and deem them “cheap” political tactics.

According to the National Institute of Justice at the Justice Department, “Recent research suggests that those who immigrate (legally or illegally) are not more likely, and may even be less likely to commit crime in the US.”

“I think it’s very sad and tragic, what happens in the country when a very small, tiny population that does bad things is now put front stage to scare everyday Americans about who immigrants are,” said Pacheco, who has been in the U.S. since she was 8, after emigrating from Ecuador with her family.

Such dynamics are reflected in the pool of witnesses testifying before the Senate, which includes Tammy Nobles, the mother of slain 20-year-old Kayla Hamilton who sued the federal government in January alleging it allowed a gang-affiliated undocumented teen charged with Hamilton's killing into the country.

More than 800,000 young adults who were brought to the U.S. as children and lack legal immigration status have been able to work and study without fear of deportation since DACA was first implemented in 2012 as an executive action by then-President Barack Obama. An overwhelming majority of DACA recipients were born in Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Then-President Donald Trump tried to shut down the program, though he was stopped by the courts. A series of lawsuits challenging DACA spearheaded by Republican-led states continue making their way through the courts.

An estimated 400,000 young people who would have been eligible to apply for DACA have been shut out of the program since 2021, when a federal judge decided to halt the program for new registrants amid the ongoing legal challenges.

In addition to Nobles and Pacheco, the other witnesses include Mitchell Soto-Rodriguez, a police officer in Illinois who has DACA, and two immigration policy experts.

Irving Hernandez, 20, one of the hundreds of TheDream.US scholars and alumni who signed the organization's letter to Congress, is among those who have been shut out of DACA in recent years.

A junior at Metropolitan State University of Denver, Hernandez is studying health psychology and aspires to have a career helping people dealing with anxiety, depression, trauma and other mental health challenges.

"I want to be such a huge catalyst for change," he said.

Hernandez said he wants lawmakers to "give Dreamers the opportunity to succeed, because we really don't get that opportunities."

Supporters of DACA say it’s one of the most successful policies for immigrant integration.

Since DACA started in 2012, recipients have contributed $108 billion to the economy, as well as $33 billion in combined taxes, according to FWD.us, a bipartisan group supporting immigration reform. Most DACA recipients are young adults who have lived in the U.S. for more than 16 years.

Pacheco, a longtime advocate trying to bridge the political divide on Dreamer legislation, recalled testifying at a congressional hearing over a decade ago, shortly after she became a DACA recipient. Now sitting in front of senators as someone who was able to become a naturalized U.S. citizen after she was sponsored by her husband, Pacheco said she hopes to convey her life story to them, show the success of the DACA program and put a spotlight on the immigrant youth who have been shut out of the program.

Nicole Acevedo is a reporter for NBC News Digital. She reports, writes and produces stories for NBC Latino and NBCNews.com

EXCLUSIVE

IMMIGRATION

Democrats urge Biden to act on immigration as Trump threatens deportations

More than 80 lawmakers sent Biden some concrete ideas as his administration considers executive actions to address U.S. border crossings.

Rep. Nanette Barragan, D-Calif., said Biden "should seize this critical moment."

Kent Nishimura / Getty Images file

May 8, 2024, 
By Julie Tsirkin

WASHINGTON — Immigration advocates and Democratic lawmakers are urging President Joe Biden to prioritize long-term undocumented immigrants as his administration weighs executive actions to curb record crossings along the southern border.

In a letter signed by more than 80 lawmakers, including members of the Congressional Hispanic and Progressive caucuses, the Democrats ask Biden to “take all available actions to streamline pathways to lawful status for undocumented immigrants” ahead of the November election.

”Deporting all such individuals — as former President Donald Trump has threatened to do if reelected — would devastate the American economy and destroy American families,” they added.

The letter offers concrete steps they say the White House could take, including streamlining the process by which DACA recipients, or undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, can seek to change to a non-immigrant status.

Arizona Sen. Kelly says immigration is the ‘most frustrating’ issue of his ‘adult life’

Lawmakers also ask Biden to unify families by allowing undocumented migrants married to U.S. citizens to seek parole on a case-by-case basis and reduce processing times for green card cases so that those migrants could be eligible to work.

The chair of the Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Nanette Barragan, D-Calif., said in a statement that Biden “should seize this critical moment by exercising his Executive Authority to rebuild our broken immigration system.”

“We urge him to provide pathways to citizenship and protections for the millions of long-term undocumented residents who have contributed to the rich fabric of the United States,” she said.

The new push follows a letter in March from Senate Democrats, led by Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Immigration Subcommittee Chair Alex Padilla, D-Calif., outlining the same call to action.

”As the Biden administration considers executive actions on immigration, we must not return to failed Trump-era policies aimed at banning asylum and moving us backwards,” Padilla told NBC News in a statement.

On Monday, NBC News reported that Biden is considering using his executive authority in the coming weeks to potentially restrict the number of migrants who can enter the U.S.

The administration has been in touch with immigration advocacy groups ahead of any executive order.

A Department of Homeland Security official with knowledge of the discussions said the White House would most likely invoke power reserved for the president in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows a president discretion over who is admitted into the U.S.

Under that authority, Customs and Border Protection would be directed to block the entry of migrants crossing over from Mexico if daily border crossings passed a certain threshold. It’s similar to a provision of the border bill negotiated by a bipartisan group of senators earlier this year, which was killed by Republicans, in part, at Trump’s urging.

Advocates are worried that the policy would be too restrictive on asylum, as are some Democrats who opposed the bill in February and called for a legal pathway to citizenship for undocumented people in the U.S. to be included in the text.

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus lobbied the administration over months to no avail, with Democratic leadership eventually giving up its long-held red line on immigration reform to unlock aid to Ukraine amid a Republican blockade.

The GOP rejected the bipartisan compromise regardless, effectively sinking all near-term prospects for Congress to tackle an issue that has plagued the U.S. government for years.

Nonetheless, Padilla said this is Biden’s “opportunity” to “provide relief for the long-term immigrants of this nation.”

The California Democrat is leading a press conference Wednesday afternoon with lawmakers and advocates from FWD.us, American Families United, UnidosUS and CASA to spotlight the letter to Biden.

The president of FWD.us, an immigration advocacy group, said in a statement that most Americans “don’t have the opportunity to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of American families — but President Biden does.”

”He has the legal authority to provide affirmative relief to the spouses of U.S. citizens, and other longtime undocumented community members,” Todd Schulte said. “We hope, and believe, he will act soon to protect these American families.”

Trump says he'll push forward with plans to end DACA

President Donald Trump said he plans to submit new paperwork in his bid to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program. Photo by Stefani Reynolds/UPI | License Photo

June 19 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump said Friday he plans to continue his effort to dismantle the Deferred Actions for Childhood Arrivals program one day after the Supreme Court blocked his attempts to do so.

The high court ruled Thursday, by a vote of 5-4, that the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to end DACA was arbitrary and capricious and illegal under the federal Administrative Procedure Act.

Trump took to Twitter on Friday to signal his plans to continue his challenge to the Obama-era program.

"The Supreme Court asked us to resubmit on DACA, nothing was lost or won. They 'punted', much like in a football game (where hopefully they would stand for our great American Flag)," he tweeted.

RELATED Watchdog: CBP struggled to handle migrant surge at border

"We will be submitting enhanced papers shortly in order to properly fulfil the Supreme Court's ruling & request of yesterday. I have wanted to take care of DACA recipients better than the Do Nothing Democrats, but for two years they refused to negotiate - They have abandoned DACA. Based on the decision the Dems can't make DACA citizens. They gained nothing!"

Trump announced in 2017 plans to wind down the DACA program, saying it would give Congress a chance to pass "responsible" immigration reform. He could use executive action to end DACA, as Congress has been unable to agree on any legislation on the issue.

Ken Cuccinelli, the acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told Fox & Friends the administration was starting the process over to end the program.

RELATED Trump administration proposes more restrictions on asylum

"We're going to move as quickly as we can to put options in front of the president," he said. "That still leaves open the appropriate solution which the Supreme Court mentioned and that is that Congress step up to the plate."

Former President Barack Obama used an executive order to create DACA in June 2012 to provide protections for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. It gives them the ability to obtain work permits and study in the country, provided they meet certain guidelines like graduating from high school and don't present a risk to national or public safety. Some 800,000 so-called Dreamers are protected under the program.

RELATED Federal judge blocks pandemic-based deportation of Honduran teen


Protesters rally against DACA repeal


Demonstrators protest President Donald Trump's decision to end the DACA program outside the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. Photo by Erin Schaff/UPI | License Photo

https://tinyurl.com/y8dmrkw6

Judge orders Trump administration to accept new DACA applications


The new order comes one month after the Supreme Court said the Trump administration's efforts to terminate DACA were arbitrary and capricious. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

July 17 (UPI) -- A federal judge in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to accept new applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program on Friday.

Since President Donald Trump began his efforts to terminate the program in 2017, the U.S. government hasn't accepted new applications. The administration has allowed existing DACA recipients -- undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children -- to continue to receive the protections.

Last month, though, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump's attempts to terminate DACA was arbitrary and capricious, and unconstitutional.

District Judge Paul Grimm on Friday said the Trump administration must enforce DACA according to its status before the efforts to terminate it.

RELATED Judge extends deadline for U.S. to release migrant children

CASA, the organization that sued to enforce DACA fully, welcomed the ruling.

"This DACA decision reaffirms what we already knew and what SCOTUS already said: the Trump admin's ... heartless attempt to terminate the DACA program was illegal and they must immediately begin accepting new DACA applications," the organization said on Twitter.

President Barack Obama started the DACA program with an executive order in 2012 in an effort to provide temporary relief from deportation for children brought to the United States by undocumented parents. It also allows them to work and go to school in the United States without risk of being sent to their country of birth.

RELATED U.S. imposes visa restrictions on employees of Chinese telecoms

Trump sought to end the program in favor of allowing Congress to pass its own immigration reform, which failed.

DOCUMENT











«
Page 4 of 4»






RELATED Trump rescinds policy forcing foreign students to attend in-person classes


RELATED ICE: Convicted Hezbollah financier has returned to Lebanon

 DACA Rule Release Aims to Bolster

 Program for ‘ Dreamers’ 

DACA recipients and their supporters rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on June 18, 2020.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Aug. 24, 2022, \

Administration aims to fortify program’s legal standing

Fifth Circuit considering arguments on policy’s legality

The Biden administration on Wednesday released the final version of regulations intended to fortify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program against legal challenges.

The program, launched in a 2012 memo by the Obama administration, offers protection from deportation and the ability to work legally to some 600,000 undocumented young people who came to the US as children. The regulation replaces the Obama-era memo and takes effect Oct. 31.

The Biden administration crafted the regulation in response to legal challenges that have plagued DACA since its inception. The rule doesn’t make the program bulletproof, however, as some litigants and judges question whether the Department of Homeland Security has authority to issue broad deportation protections at all.

“Today, we are taking another step to do everything in our power to preserve and fortify DACA, an extraordinary program that has transformed the lives of so many Dreamers,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

Mayorkas called on Congress to pass legislation to create a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients, often known as Dreamers. Many lawmakers quickly echoed that sentiment, pushing the Senate to take up House-passed legislation (H.R. 6) protecting Dreamers and other undocumented immigrants.

“This step forward does not take away from the urgency for 10 Senate Republicans to join all Democrats to pass the House-passed bipartisan Dream and Promise Act and provide certainty and a pathway to citizenship for our hardworking Dreamers across the country,” Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

The legislation would need the support of 10 Republicans and all Democrats to meet the Senate’s 60-vote threshold—an uphill battle amid increasing Capitol Hill polarization on immigration policy ahead of midterm elections.

Inside the Rule

The DHS’s final regulation maintains existing criteria for DACA status and the process for seeking work authorization. The rule will apply only to DACA renewal requests, not to new applications, while a federal court order remains in place barring DHS from granting new requests for status.

DACA has faced challenges in court from Republican-led states even after a Trump administration effort to rescind the program was overturned by the US Supreme Court in 2020.

Last year, Houston-based US District Judge Andrew Hanen ruled the program was unlawful because it was created through a secretarial memo and not a formal rulemaking process. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard arguments in an appeal of that ruling in July.

“DHS has carefully and respectfully considered all aspects of the analysis in that decision, including that decision’s conclusions about DACA’s substantive legality,” the agency said in the final regulation Wednesday, adding that it “respectfully disagrees.”

The Department of Homeland Security received more than 16,000 comments in response to a draft rule released in September. The proposed rule largely codified the 2012 memo that created the program.

However, the draft regulations allowed recipients to apply for deferred action and work eligibility separately, to the chagrin of immigration advocates and business groups who feared that could ultimately undermine employment authorization. The final version retains the existing process.

(Updated with additional reporting throughout.)

Editorial: Biden is right to fortify DACA, but America needs a legislative solution

2022/08/26

Zoe Lofgren, D- Calif., left, join DACA recipients and other lawmakers at an event celebrating the 10th anniversary of DACA, at the U.S. Capitol on June 15, 2022, in Washington, D.C.. - Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images North America/TNS

There’s hardly been a more consequential law for immigration policy over the past several years than the Administrative Procedure Act, which has been used against both the Trump and Biden administrations to great effect by those charging that the federal government is making decisions capriciously.

Among the policies in the crosshairs has been Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era executive program that since 2012 has offered hundreds of thousands of young people brought illegally into the country as children the opportunity to secure work authorization and be shielded from deportation.

In its more than 10 years of existence, DACA has been the subject of constant litigation and barely held on until, last July, Trump-appointed Texas federal Judge Andrew Hanen — quickly becoming a go-to hatchet man for conservatives hoping to nix Biden priorities — ruled it unconstitutional, allowing current enrollees to renew applications but blocking additional enrollments, and setting up the eventual termination of the policy.

Hanen decided that, when Obama’s Department of Homeland Security first issued the memo establishing DACA, it did so without observing proper rule-making procedures. Biden has now neutralized this argument by putting a new, formal federal rule reestablishing the DACA program through an extensive notice-and-comment period, crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s. Its structure is the exact same as the existing DACA policy, but it now has the much more solid backing of being part of the nation’s official regulatory framework.

This should help the program clear legal obstacles, but it’s not enough. The administration must be prepared to keep defending it all the way up to the Supreme Court while continuing to put pressure on lawmakers to finally codify a version of the DREAM Act into law, offering not just DACA’s temporary protections but a full path to citizenship for people for whom the United States is and will always be home, including for the many children who have arrived since the original supposed stopgap program went into effect. That’s the answer truest to our common values: treating hardworking, law-abiding immigrants as fellow Americans.

———

© New York Daily News

Judge rules Daca suspension invalid, Homeland Security head in office illegally


Chad Wolf took office unlawfully, says federal court judge, therefore could not suspend program that shields young people from deportation


Associated Press

Sun 15 Nov 2020 
 

Acting Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf during a Senate confirmation hearing in September. Photograph: Greg Nash/AFP/Getty Images


A federal judge in New York has ruled that the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, assumed his position unlawfully and has invalidated Wolf’s suspension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, which shields young people from deportation.

“DHS failed to follow the order of succession as it was lawfully designated,” the US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis wrote.

Chad Wolf: who is the Trump official leading the crackdown in Portland?


“Therefore the actions taken by purported acting secretaries, who were not properly in their roles according to the lawful order of succession, were taken without legal authority.”

About 650,000 people are part of Daca, which allows young immigrants who were brought to the country as children to legally work and shields them from deportation.

Karen Tumlin, an attorney who represented a plaintiff in one of two lawsuits that challenged Wolf’s authority, called the ruling “another win for Daca recipients and those who have been waiting years to apply for the program for the first time”.

Wolf issued a memorandum in July effectively suspending Daca pending review by DHS. A month earlier the US supreme court had ruled that Donald Trump failed to follow rule-making procedures when he tried to end the program, but the justices kept a window open for him to try again.

Daca has changed lives – and the country – for the better. It must be preserved

Roberto G Gonzales and Kristina Brant

In August the Government Accountability Office, a bipartisan congressional watchdog, said Wolf and his acting deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, were improperly serving and ineligible to run the agency under the Vacancies Reform Act. The two have been at the forefront of administration initiatives on immigration and law enforcement.

Wolf is the fifth person to serve as homeland security secretary under Trump in an acting or confirmed capacity, while George W Bush and Barack Obama each had three people in the job over the course of their two presidential terms. Wolf was named to the post only after two of the president’s preferred candidates were ruled ineligible to take up the job.

Since being appointed to the role, Wolf has overseen the controversial deployment of federal agents to quell Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, as well as denying that there was a problem with systemic racism in US law enforcement. He has also downplayed the threat of Covid-19, while overseeing the implementation of extreme immigration restrictions the White House claimed would stem the spread of coronavirus.

In Garaufis’s ruling on Saturday, the judge wrote that DHS did not follow an order of succession established when then-secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned in April 2019.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the

Effort in U.S. Congress to protect 'Dreamer' immigrants stalling





More than 200 "Dreamers" and their supporters from across U.S.A. attempt to lobby members of U.S. Congress in Washington

Thu, December 15, 2022 
By Ted Hesson and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Over 200 advocates from around the United States converged on Capitol Hill this week with an 11th-hour mission: persuade lawmakers to provide citizenship to "Dreamer" immigrants who illegally entered the United States as children.

Addinelly Moreno Soto, a 31-year-old communications aide who came to the United States from Mexico at age 3, trekked to the Capitol from San Antonio with her husband on Wednesday hoping to meet with her state's U.S. Senator John Cornyn. The influential Republican's support could help advance a deal that has eluded Congress for more than a decade - and which appears likely to fail again this year.

Cornyn could not meet with her and other Dreamer supporters from Texas, she said. One of his staffers told them that Cornyn would need to review the text of any legislation before making a decision.


The end-of-year push comes as a window is nearly closed for Congress to find a compromise to protect Dreamers, many of whom speak English and have jobs, families and children in the United States but lack permanent status.

Supporters of the effort have pushed for Congress to pass the legislation now since Democrats - who overwhelmingly back Dreamers - will cede control of the U.S. House of Representatives to Republicans in January. Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican, has said the border must be secured before other immigration issues can be addressed.

About 594,000 Dreamers are enrolled in a 2012 program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which grants protection from deportation and work permits, but is currently subject to a legal challenge brought by Texas and other U.S. states with Republican attorneys general.

U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat who came to office in 2021, promised during his campaign to protect Dreamers and their families after Republican former President Donald Trump tried to end DACA.

Both Moreno and her husband enrolled in DACA in 2012. They now have two U.S.-citizen boys ages two and three.

"How much longer do we have to prove ourselves - that we are worthy of being here permanently?" Moreno said. "That is the frustrating part. I have children. What about them?"

'NOT GOING ANYWHERE'

Senators Kyrsten Sinema, an independent from Arizona who recently left the Democratic Party, and Republican Thom Tillis of North Carolina, worked on a plan in recent weeks to combine border restrictions with a path to citizenship for an estimated 2 million Dreamers, according to a framework of possible legislation reviewed by Reuters.

But even some House Democrats have expressed reservations with the framework of the Senate bill.

The Senate is split 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote. At least 10 Republicans would need to join Democrats to overcome a procedural hurdle that requires 60 votes to advance legislation in the Senate.

Lawmakers have a narrow timeframe with a little more than a week before Congress is expected to pass a roughly $1.7 trillion spending bill that would serve as a vehicle for the immigration deal, but leading Republicans have said it will not happen.

"It’s not going anywhere," Cornyn told Reuters this week, offering a more blunt assessment than his staffer.

On Thursday, a Senate aide and three other people familiar with the matter said the Dreamer effort would not advance before the end of the year. The offices of Sinema and Tillis did not respond to requests for comment.

Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California said it was frustrating and disappointing that the talks had not even progressed into legislation for senators to review.

Senator John Kennedy, a conservative Republican from Louisiana, said his party had lost trust in the president's willingness to secure the border amid record illegal crossings.

"President Biden's administration is perfectly content to have the border open," Kennedy said. "They're happy to have all those people coming in and everybody knows that."

A Biden administration official criticized Republicans for "finger-pointing" and attacking Biden's record "when they themselves refuse to take the actual steps we need from Congress to fix our broken immigration system."

For Raul Perez, a 33-year-old from Austin, Texas, who came to Washington, the prolonged uncertainty over his and other Dreamers futures was deeply frustrating.

"It's been over a decade now since DACA came out and we're still in the same spot," said Perez, who is part of the immigrant-youth led advocacy group United We Dream. "We need something to pass now. We can't keep waiting."


(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Richard Cowan in Washington; Editing by Mary Milliken, Aurora Ellis and Lisa Shumaker)

Pardon for 'Dreamers'? Some activists tout amnesty for undocumented immigrants if Congress doesn't act

In his first few days in office, President Joe Biden moved swiftly to deliver on promises to Hispanic voters, signing a directive to protect "Dreamers" from deportation and unveiling an outline for sweeping changes to immigration laws.

Tuesday afternoon, the president announced a task force to reunite families separated at the border and an executive order that reviews a Trump administration policy requiring migrants seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while they plead their case.

But executive actions are not permanent, and the White House already has begun tamping down hopes for passage of an omnibus reform measure.

That leaves some Latino advocacy groups looking at an untested fallback plan: a mass presidential pardon for at least some of the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally.

“We believe this is a viable option if the Senate fails to act on comprehensive immigration reform,” said Domingo Garcia, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

Reversing Trump: Biden to create task force to reunite families separated at border, sign order to review asylum program

Reuniting families: 628 parents remain separated from their kids after Trump's zero-tolerance border policy. Biden wants to find them.

Hector Sánchez Barba, executive director at Mi Familia Vota,said congressional action is the top priority, and Biden has put forth “the most progressive plan I’ve seen, probably in our history.”

But if Congress fails to reform immigration laws, he said, “I am in an action mode. … We will advocate for anything that reverses the extremism and damage” of the Trump administration.

It is unclear how Biden would respond if pressed to pursue a mass pardon. Moreover, not all immigrant-rights advocates want to pursue that controversial path while there is a chance Congress could act.

Jorge Loweree, policy director with the American Immigration Council, said a presidential pardon for immigration violators falls short because “it wouldn’t put people on a path to citizenship; it would just cure one of the barriers to getting there.”

© Evan Vucci, AP President Joe Biden signs his first executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. Six of Biden's 17 first-day executive orders dealt with immigration, such as halting work on a border wall in Mexico and lifting a travel ban on people from several predominantly Muslim countries.

The clemency proposition is not new. In late 2016, before Trump was inaugurated, Garcia and others feared the new president would launch draconian deportations of undocumented immigrants – especially those brought to the United States as children, called "Dreamers" based on never-passed proposals in Congress called the DREAM Act.

Dozens of advocacy groups and at least three Democrats in Congress implored then-President Barack Obama to issue last-minute amnesty. In a letter to the president, Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California and her colleagues described the proposed pardon as “a matter of life and death” for many of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Obama denied the request. And Trump carried out his promised crackdown.

© Richard Vogel, AP Protesters gather at the federal courthouse in Los Angeles in June 2018 to object to the Trump administration's separation of migrant children from their parents at the U.S. border with Mexico.

Biden acts to undo Trump's immigration policies

Trump’s promise of a border wall was the hallmark of his first presidential campaign. In office, he tried to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allows people brought to the U.S. as children to remain in the country, but he was largely blocked by court rulings. As part of a "zero tolerance" policy for illegal entry, children were separated from parents at the southern border. The administration tried to prevent most migrants from claiming political asylum and required those seeking asylum to wait in Mexico.

Cut to 2020 and Biden’s platform was the polar opposite: He vowed to stop construction of Trump's southern border wall, protect "Dreamers" and overhaul U.S. immigration laws that have not changed significantly in three decades.

On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive memorandum reinstating DACA and unveiled a sweeping immigration reform package.

Under that proposal, agricultural workers, people who arrived illegally as children and immigrants with what is known as temporary protected status would immediately qualify for green cards – giving them legal status and a right to work. Other undocumented immigrants in the United States as of Jan. 1 would receive temporary legal status for five years, with a path to citizenship if they passed background checks and paid taxes

.

© Mario Tama, Getty Images Mexican immigrant Vicky Uriostegui, who has lived in the U.S. for 27 years, hauls out water hoses at dawn on a farm in fields near Turlock, California. Agriculture is the main economic driver in the region, and most field work is done by immigrants.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a Republican who had supported a bipartisan immigration reform plan, ripped Biden’s legislative plan as “mass amnesty” – the exact words used by Trump loyalist Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

Meanwhile, congressional Democrats who once pushed Obama to pardon "Dreamers" went silent.

Lofgren, a former immigration attorney and the most recent chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, declined to comment on whether she may ask Biden to use his pardon power.

In a written statement, she said she’s focused on working with the president “to advance our shared bold vision to reform our country’s immigration system.”

Other members of the House and Senate did not respond to emails and calls. Neither did a White House spokesman.
A constitutional ‘gray area’

On Jan. 21, 1977, more than 570,000 American offenders were given pardons.

It was the first full day in office for President Jimmy Carter, and he used it to grant amnesty to Vietnam-era draft dodgers. Nearly 210,000 had been charged with violating the Selective Service Act. Another 360,000 dodged but were not prosecuted.

© AP President Jimmy Carter extended a pardon to over 200,000 Vietnam anti-draft resisters in 1977.

Article II, Clause 1 of the Constitution is terse and clear: “The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

The authority covers all violations of federal law and may be used absolutely or conditionally, according to Cornell University Law School’s Legal Information Institute. It includes a presumed power “to pardon specified classes or communities wholesale, in short, the power to amnesty.”

Draft dodgers were nowhere near the first to benefit from mass clemency. Three years earlier, President Gerald Ford granted a conditional pardon to military deserters who were willing to perform public service.

In fact, presidents throughout history granted amnesty to large groups, beginning with the first pardon issued by George Washington in 1795 to participants in a tax revolt known as the Whiskey Rebellion.

Andrew Johnson gave amnesty to all Confederate soldiers after the Civil War. And, in 1902, Theodore Roosevelt granted amnesty to residents of the Philippines – then a U.S. territory – who took part in an insurrection.

Yet, according to legal experts, no president has ever pardoned someone for illegal immigration during the nation’s 245-year history. Presidential pardons historically have addressed criminal violations; entering or being in the country unlawfully is a civil offense unless it's a repeat violation.

Peter Markowitz, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law, acknowledged it's a legal “gray area.” But he said immigration violations – civil or criminal – clearly constitute offenses, and there is “ample reason to believe it is within a president’s pardon authority.”

In a 2017 law review article co-written with Lindsay Nash, Markowitz advocated just such an action, writing: “The President possesses the constitutional authority to categorically pardon broad classes of immigrants for civil violations of the immigration laws and to thereby provide durable and permanent protections against deportation.”

Other experts say it's not so clear-cut, especially without any Supreme Court precedent on pardons for civil offenses. Some argue that a person in the United States illegally commits an ongoing violation. Pardon power may not be exercised to erase future offenses.

Markowitz conceded that executive clemency is an “imperfect solution” because, while it would protect undocumented immigrants from deportation, it would not grant them legal status or rights.

“Everybody would prefer that this type of durable protection be delivered through legislation,” Markowitz said. But if that proves impossible, clemency at least gives undocumented immigrants peace of mind that they can’t be deported.
'We knew what was coming' with Trump

Despite legal uncertainties and a likely political backlash, Markowitz suggested using pardon power for immigrants would have been worth it four years ago.

In a 2016 opinion piece, Raul A. Reyes, an immigration attorney and member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors, argued that by inviting young "Dreamers" to sign up for DACA, Democrats later exposed them to deportation under the Trump administration.

“It would be a cruel irony if Obama were to turn his back on those here illegally – through no fault of their own – after he helped expose them to risk of deportation,” he concluded.

David Leopold, immigration counsel for America’s Voice, which advocates a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, said it made sense to consider amnesty at the close of Obama’s presidency because Trump had characterized immigrants as criminals.

“We knew the extremism. We knew the xenophobia. We knew what was coming,” said Leopold, who served as a volunteer adviser in the Biden campaign.

But as Biden’s presidency begins, Leopold does not see presidential pardon power as a serious consideration because about 80% of Americans favor changes in law to protect undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.

“The answer right now is legislative,” Leopold said. “There’s a moment in history right now when we can do it. … Hopefully, Congress will step up to the plate.”

Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said it would be a legal and political stretch for Biden to simply pardon people who entered the United States unlawfully – a “very out-of-the-blue proposition,” as she put it.

“I’m just having a hard time figuring out how the pardon power … could be justified for that,” said Meissner, now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.
Some say it's not the time to talk pardons

Ira Mehlman, media director with the Federation for Immigration Reform, which advocates for strict immigration enforcement and controls, said mass clemency would constitute a “huge overreach” by the president.

In a podcast four years ago, he noted, Cecilia Muñoz, then director of the Obama White House’s Domestic Policy Council, declared that pardons "wouldn’t protect a single soul from deportation.”

Some immigrant rights advocates also resist talk of amnesty, at least for now, for fear it would undermine the push for legislation.

Kristian Ramos of Autonomy Strategies, a communications firm specializing in Latino issues, said Biden’s executive order protecting DACA recipients and immigrants in temporary protected status has, for now, solved the most pressing problem.

“They’re protected,” Ramos said. “He has essentially provided the … reprieve that he could. There’s no real need to pardon them.”

Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, a DACA recipient from Brazil and policy manager with United We Dream, declined to address the amnesty question in a written statement.

Instead, she stressed that Biden and Democrats “have a mandate from the people” to transform America's immigration system. “President Biden must use every tool at his disposal to provide relief for as many people as possible," she said.

“We are tired and not satisfied by executive actions,” said Fernando Garcia, executive director with Border Network for Human Rights. “We need to actually change the law.”

Garcia expressed doubt that Biden would consider amnesty even if legislation fails. “I don’t think it’s realistic that any president is going to say, ‘We’re going to pardon 600,000 Dreamers or 1.2 million Dreamers,’” he said. “And I don’t believe Dreamers are guilty of any offense.”

Loweree, with the American Immigration Council, said America’s support for "Dreamers" is higher than ever, and the president has a “unique opportunity” to fulfill campaign promises beginning with announcements Tuesday.

Loweree said he doesn’t buy into claims that Biden has a debt to Hispanics who helped him get elected. “The issue here isn’t who owes anyone anything,” he said. Rather, it’s about fulfilling a promise made during the Obama administration: "'Dreamers' who came out of the shadows and signed up for DACA were told they’d be protected and allowed to work, not deported."

With that in mind, Loweree suggested talk of presidential amnesty cannot be dismissed entirely: “We expect President Biden will do everything in his power – and consider all options.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A pardon for 'Dreamers'? Some activists tout amnesty for undocumented immigrants if Congress doesn't act