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NPR Higher Education
'You See In
Their Eyes The Fear': DACA Students Face An Uncertain Future
Claudio Sanchez
"You see in their eyes the fear, that's the heartbreaker," says Erazo,
a high school counselor in Olathe, Kan.
In recent months, Erazo says, he's had to be honest with students and
their parents. He stopped encouraging them to apply for DACA, which
stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, because of the
likelihood the Trump administration would revoke it. The program has
allowed young immigrants who were brought here illegally as children to
remain in the U.S.
"I'm an educator, not an immigration lawyer," Erazo says. "But these
are children who did not make the decision to enter the U.S. illegally.
They broke no law and they've grown up as American as you and I."
Erazo is one of thousands of educators around the country struggling
with what happens next following the Trump administration's
announcement this week that it is ending the DACA program.
Essentially, the president wants Congress to decide the future of the
800,000 DACA recipients, and the administration has given lawmakers a
six-month deadline.
As an example of the young people who are facing uncertainty, Erazo
tells me about 22-year-old Maria Diaz. She was just a year old when her
parents left Puebla, Mexico, crossed into the U.S. illegally and
settled in Olathe, their home for the past 21 years.
In 2012, while she was still in high school, Diaz applied and qualified
for DACA. Erazo helped her with her college application to the
University of Kansas, which gave her a scholarship and allowed her to
pay in-state tuition.
Today, Diaz is a junior majoring in business, with a full-time job at
Bank of America. She worries that, with the end of DACA, both her
college education and her job are at risk.
"My education can hopefully continue but without that income, I'm not
sure," Diaz says.
She recently renewed her DACA permit, so she has at least two years to
figure out what she's going to do if and when the program ends. She
does not discard the possibility of being deported and having to move
to Mexico, a country she has never visited.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, 76 percent of all
DACA-eligible immigrants are currently in the labor force. A quarter of
them go to college and work. About 5 percent have gone on to earn at
least a bachelor's degree.
Now that President Trump has handed the issue to Congress, immigrant
rights groups say they will lobby House and Senate leaders, especially
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
Ryan said on Tuesday that while he believes the DACA program was an
"abuse of executive authority," he nevertheless hopes Congress can
"find consensus on a permanent legislative solution."
It's unclear, though, whether that can happen within the six-month
extension that Trump has called for. "It is important that those
affected have clarity on how this interim period will be carried out,"
Ryan said.
That means that, for the time being, Maria Diaz and other young people
like her will have to wait.
"The uncertainty sometimes is too much to bear," she says, "but we have
to remain hopeful."
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