Thread: 200,000 Kids Could Lose Their Parents if DREAMers Are Deported

200K Kids Could Lose Their Parents if DREAMers Are Deported

Parents who benefited from the immigration program that President Trump just rescinded have laid down roots in the United States.

BETSY WOODRUFF
09.07.17 1:00 AM ET

CHRISTOPHER DILTS/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY

Angelica Villalobos has had difficult conversations with her four daughters, ages 17, 13, 10, and 8, in recent days. All four are U.S. citizens. But Villalobos, who lives in Oklahoma City, is undocumented.

She’s been in the country for decades before receiving temporary protection from deportation through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. On Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Trump administration will end the DACA program, which means that people like Villalobos are now at greater risk of deportation.

And so, Villalobos and her husband—also a DACA recipient—are preparing their daughters for the worst.

They’ve told the 17-year-old that she may have to become the guardian of her three younger sisters if they, the parents, get deported. Already she’s begun driving her sisters to school and picking them up afterward to get used to the possibility.

“I tell them it will be OK,” Villalobos said, “even though I don’t know if it will be OK.”

There’s been substantial focus on the economic impact of the rescission of DACA, since upwards of 800,000 people have temporary work permits through the program. But as DACA recipients lose their protection and face higher risk of deportation, it’s not just economy that will take the hardest hit—it’s families as well.

There are about 200,000 children who are U.S. citizens who have parents that receive DACA protections, according to two studies. The most recent of those studies was conducted by Tom Wong of the University of California at San Diego, in conjunction with United We Dream, the National Immigration Law Center, and the liberal Center for American Progress (PDF). For that study, researchers surveyed 3,063 DACA recipients from Aug. 1 to Aug. 20 of this year. Of those, more than one in four said they had at least one child who was an American citizen.

“The data shows that 25.7 percent of DACA recipients have at least one U.S. citizen child,” Wong told The Daily Beast. “If extrapolated to the total population of DACA recipients, this suggests that at least 200,000 U.S. citizen children live in the U.S. currently who have a DACA recipient for a parent.”

Brian Root, who does data analysis for Human Rights Watch, said Wong’s study was a reliable indicator of the DACA population.

“It’s as good as you can do with this population,” he said.

Root noted that other studies have similar findings.

One, which the pro-DACA group United We Dream conducted in June 2015, found that 24.5 percent of respondents had a U.S. citizen child (PDF). Root said this would also indicate that DACA recipients parent about 200,000 U.S. citizen children.

As DACA is wound down in the coming months, these children face a highly fraught and uncertain future. While the Trump administration has announced its priorities for deportation are extremely broad, DHS has said it will not proactively provide DACA recipients’ information to deportation officers. That said, officers can still use recipients’ information in deportation proceedings, according to a recent DHS statement.

The White House has already indicated it wants DACA recipients to leave, encouraging them to make travel plans, according to talking points obtained by CNN.

“The Department of Homeland Security urges DACA recipients to use the time remaining on their work authorizations to prepare for and arrange their departure from the United States -- including proactively seeking travel documentation -- or to apply for other immigration benefits for which they may be eligible,” the memo said.

Trump isn’t the first president to deport the parents of U.S. citizens; Obama deported millions of people during his presidency, separating countless families.

And he left Trump with a powerful immigration enforcement system, including a significant expansion of detention facilities. Now, Trump is poised to solidify that legacy, while ending the one form of reprieve Obama offered to undocumented people.

Along with the families, advocates and lawyers are already seeing the end results. Andrew Free, an immigration attorney in Nashville, said that one of his clients, a woman who is temporarily shielded from deportation by DACA, has a son in elementary school who is afraid she will be deported.

“My client’s son became inconsolable at school when she got caught in traffic and was a bit late to the car rider line,” he said. “He was terrified he’d never see her again. He required counseling.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/200k-k...s-are-deported

Will DACA Parents Be Forced to Leave Their U.S.-Citizen Children Behind?

Angelica Villalobos has had difficult conversations with her four daughters, ages 17, 13, 10, and 8, in recent days. All four are U.S. citizens. But Villalobos, who lives in Oklahoma City, is undocumented.

They’ve told the 17-year-old that she may have to become the guardian of her three younger sisters if they, the parents, get deported. Already she’s begun driving her sisters to school and picking them up afterward to get used to the possibility.

“I tell them it will be OK,” Villalobos said, “even though I don’t know if it will be OK.”

Oh no, you don't. Your 17 year old daughter WILL NOT be given guardianship of her younger siblings in the US. She and the others will be removed with you. You aren't dumping your kids here in the US. They will all be removed with you when you are deported. They are citizens of your country because they are your children. You people disgust me so much it makes me want to puke. You have turned our country into a third world banana republic with no morals, no respect for others, and absolutely no respect for our people. If you think for a minute the Americans are going to continue to pick up the tab for you to support your spawn, you need to wake up and put your chubby little short finger to the wind and see that your pony ride here is over.

So what!

they are nothing more than illegal alien anchor babies

Originally Posted by lorrie

So what!

they are nothing more than illegal alien anchor babies

Exactly! Who gives a rat's ass? Americans want all these people out of our country, out of our job market, out of our schools, colleges, shopping malls, utility offices, hospitals and .... MATERNITY WARDS. We want them all off our Medicaid, our food stamps, our free school lunch and out of our low income housing. We want them out of our homes, out of our neighborhoods, off our streets and highways, out of Capitol and White House, out of our news and out of our lives ..... we want them .... GONE!!!!!

The lapdog media always likes to point out the rare high achievers. Most of these are either taking jobs away, taking college positions away, will easily turn to radical activism or have rather disreputable backgrounds.

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