LYNN — For a long time now, Lynn recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) have been worried they will soon be forced to go back to their birth countries.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to shut down President Donald Trump’s bid to end the program has elated DACA recipients — also known as dreamers — even if the feeling is only temporary.
“America is my home, and I’m really happy I can stay,” said Lissette Orellana.
Orellana, 22, is a Lynn resident and DACA recipient. She has lived in the U.S. since she was 8 years old, just after she left El Salvador, has received a bachelor’s degree in communications from Southern New Hampshire University, and works as a case manager for Lynn Housing Authority and Neighborhood Development (LHAND).
Orellana considers herself an American, and she is ecstatic that a perceivably conservative Supreme Court — with two of its nine justices appointed by Trump — would rule in a way that would allow her to stay in the country she calls home.
“My future is brighter now,” she said.
DACA was signed by President Barack Obama as an executive action in 2012, allowing people who had been brought to the U.S. illegally as children to stay in the country, become exempt from deportation, and gain work permits — as long as they had not committed felonies or serious criminal misdemeanors. In 2018, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services estimated approximately 700,000 DACA recipients were in the country.
Despite her excitement, Orellana said her feeling of relief may only be temporary. Reading the fine print, the Supreme Court’s decision did not say Trump couldn’t end the DACA program, only that he went about trying to end the program the wrong way.
The Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s bid to end the program was “capricious in violation” of the Administrative Achievement Act, wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the ruling.
Orellana said she and others will not feel comfortable until they are given a pathway to citizenship.
“I came to America when I was 8 years old,” Orellana said. “I’m 22 now. When Trump said he was going to end the program, it was nerve-racking every single day. I kept thinking, ‘What is going to happen to me? What is going to happen to me? I can’t go back to my country.’”
Another Lynn resident and DACA recipient, who wished to remain anonymous, said he is still worried because the decision does not give him or others permanent asylum, residency, or citizenship in the U.S. However, he said he views the decision positively because of the Supreme Court’s current ideological makeup.
“You have a Supreme Court right now that is more than one-half conservative, but they said this program can’t be canceled yet,” he said. “That to me says people can back this up, even if they believe something else.”
The aforementioned source’s sister, who also did not wish to be named, said she hopes people who oppose DACA will consider what canceling the program would mean.
“We would get kicked out, thrown back,” she said. “I don’t know the country I was born in. I know America. I speak Spanish, but at this point I think I speak English better.”
Iveth Martinez, who works with undocumented immigrants through the Lynn Rapid Response Network, said she has “seen how DACA recipients struggle” because “every year it’s something new” regarding their status.
“It’s really good they got this relief right now, but what we really need is more legislative action,” Martinez said. “We need a permanent solution. This is temporary. The people I know are relieved, but they’re only relieved right now. They can’t celebrate yet.”
Martinez said she hopes that — along with legislative action — the general public realizes how much value undocumented immigrants add to their communities.
“They are working everywhere,” she said. “They are in civil service, they are engineers, they are in education.”
