Thread: Trump's Immigration Policies Have Made Dreamers Too Afraid to Renew DACA Before ....

Trump's Immigration Policies Have Made Dreamers Too Afraid to Renew DACA Before Deadline: Experts

By Julia Glum On 10/4/17 at 10:24 PM

Thousands of U.S. immigrants are on track to miss a critical Thursday deadline to extend their protection from deportation—because they're scared.

When the Trump administration announced last month that it would end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that some 154,000 immigrants could apply for renewal before their protected status would expire — if they took action before this Thursday. But at close of business Wednesday, only 112,000 people have submitted the necessary paperwork, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman told Newsweek.

Activists say a large chunk of the missing 42,000 eligible Dreamers, as they're called, have refused to apply out of fear. They're worried the anti-immigrant Trump administration will use the identification and contact information to force them out of the only country they've ever known.

"There's a sense of trust being grossly violated," Carlos Guevara, a senior policy advisor with the nonprofit UnidosUS, told Newsweek. "There's a concern of, 'Why would I come forward again?'"
Related: What Is Going to Happen to the DREAMers After Donald Trump’s DACA Decision?

President Barack Obama launched DACA in 2012 so that undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children could go to school, get jobs and receive benefits like driver's licenses without worrying they'd be removed because of their illegal status. About 800,000 people came out of the shadows—but on September 5, President Trump ended the protections, punting the issue to Congress, which has not acted.

But pro-immigration groups have. Guevara says his organization spent the past month scrambling to notify eligible Dreamers to get their applications in, though many are reluctant to give their full legal name, mailing address, date of birth, gender, marital status, country of birth and other vital info to a government that has sent mixed signals at best on immigrants.

"Within the community, there is a lot of concern, frustration, anger, sadness—the range of emotions about what the decision means for them," he adds. "My question is whether they'll take the next step to apply."

Legislation is pending to address DACA, but it's slow-going and divisive.

Senators Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, are pushing a bill that would allow immigrants to get lawful permanent residence and citizenship if they meet certain conditions. A trio of Republican senators—North Carolina's Thom Tillis, Oklahoma's James Lankford and Utah's Orrin Hatch—have introduced other legislation.

Alex Solomiany, an immigration attorney in Miami, Florida, says the uncertain timeline of those bills has made many Dreamers nervous.

"There's been so much talk back and forth, you get it from both sides. 'Why should I renew now? Why am I going to give them my most recent information? Because they'll use it against me when it expires,'" he says. "They're afraid to file because they don't know what's going to happen come March 5, 2018" when DACA expires for good.

It is unclear what the Trump administration would or could do with the information. The Department of Homeland Security has said that "generally, information provided in DACA requests will not be proactively provided to other law enforcement entities," such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, but there's a caveat: "unless [the immigrant] poses a risk to national security or public safety."

And the Trump administration has defined the term "risk" broadly, covering undocumented immigrants who have not been convicted of any crime beyond their illegal status.

ICE has said it's most concerned with immigrants who have significant criminal records. But nearly 20,000 of the immigrants arrested between January and June 2017 weren't convicts, according to CNN. That's more than double the number that were detained during the same period in 2016.

The anxiety some DACA recipients are feeling prompted Texas Representative Beto O'Rourke to introduce the Protect DREAMer Confidentiality Act of 2017, which would bar the secretary of Homeland Security from releasing a Dreamer's personal information to enforcement officials.

"It's not an irrational decision on the part of someone not to come forward," O'Rourke, a Democrat, told Newsweek. "What would give folks some confidence to renew is to have something like this bill in place as law."

http://www.newsweek.com/daca-deadlin...-reform-678039

They need to pack up themselves, their spouses, their children and the rotten parents who bought them here to begin with and all go home together. Nothing scary at all about going home to your land of citizenship where you belong with your whole family. This "fear" is manufactured. This "unknown" country is a lie. Now start packing and get the hell out of here. If you leave on your own, you can come back and visit your friends some day if you want to. If you're deported, you won't be able to do that for many many years, maybe never, because you might be judged untrustworthy and radical. The vast majority of you are from Mexico, a friendly beautiful neighboring country, now get out of here. We're tired of seeing you, listening to you, and paying for you. NOW GO HOME!!!!

I bet most have not "renewed" because they are LIARS and they will get caught

Sell out, pack up and get out.

Go find housing and jobs on YOUR soil before the mass deportation and exodus occurs

You will be sent out of here one way or another

Soon to cut off ALL your damn freebies we pay for!

Thousands of U.S. immigrants are on track to miss a critical Thursday deadline to extend their protection from deportation—because they're scared.

The very first sentence in the article is all ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ and starts off with a lie.

Always playing the word game; the correct terminology is ‘Thousands of Illegal Immigrants’ in the U.S., not thousands of US immigrants.

Originally Posted by Beezer

I bet most have not "renewed" because they are LIARS and they will get caught

Sell out, pack up and get out.

Go find housing and jobs on YOUR soil before the mass deportation and exodus occurs

You will be sent out of here one way or another

Soon to cut off ALL your damn freebies we pay for!

That’s exactly right Beezer!

They knew Obama was rubber stamping there approvals with no vetting or background checks and know Trump ended that lawlessness.

They should be afraid, very afraid.

There must be consequences for breaking our immigration laws.

The border invasion must stop and the first step in accomplishing this is
by actions, immigration violators will be severely punished, and not rewarded.

Good!!! Keep up the good work, you may want to try to run them out, too, but realistically, you're going to have to haul them out, so keep talking as well as hauling. Takes both.