Editorial written by Dallas Morning News Editorial Board
The news that immigration officials can resume accepting DACA applications marks another turn in a long and exhausting legal battle over the immigration program.
After a four-year hiatus, immigrants brought to the U.S. as children may once again be able to apply for permits to live and work in the country. Because of a court ruling, Texas will remain an outlier — blocking work permits for DACA recipients but still recognizing protection from deportation.
This leaves Texas recipients unable to work to support themselves, and newcomers who move here risk losing their permits. Pushing workers into the shadows, even though they have temporary permission to stay, isn’t smart, conservative policy.
DACA, or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, was created by the Obama administration in 2012 to grant temporary protection to some immigrants who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children. Congress had a chance to make those protections permanent, but it didn’t.
Over the years, the temporary protections have been caught in the crosscurrents of lawsuits. The latest filing in a federal court in Brownsville is another signal of just how fragile this program is.
Every two years, DACA recipients must reapply to renew their protections and work permits, a reminder of how unfinished America’s promise remains.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, more than half a million immigrants are enrolled in DACA, with Texas home to the second-largest group of recipients after California. The average age of DACA recipients is 31. Many of those who fought for the program in its earliest years are in their 30s or 40s, raising families and building careers.
What was once a fight for access to education is now about the ability to provide for a family and keep a household together. DACA recipients are not just young people trying to go to college. They are parents, taxpayers, homeowners, and workers who have deep roots in this nation.
Even President Donald Trump, who tried to end the program, has acknowledged the need for a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients. At one point, there was a bipartisan coalition in Congress that could have pushed legislation across the finish line.
In 2018, lawmakers came close with a proposal that would have offered DACA recipients permanent legal status in exchange for tougher border security measures. But politics got in the way.
We didn’t act when we had a chance, before the hyperpartisan era we are in now. For too long, we have governed for political gain no matter the cost, compromising this nation’s sense of humanity and its economic future in the name of settling scores.
There is nothing wise about forcing people, brought here through no fault of their own, to live in legal limbo, tentatively planning for a future that may collapse with the next court ruling. Yet DACA recipients keep the faith. If only we would deliver.
