DREAMERS IN DANGER OF DEPORTATION
The New York Times and Vox report that some DACA recipients could be in danger well ahead of the March deadline announced by the Trump administration. The March deadline is actually artificial, and many of the Dreamers are in danger right now.
Some incredible circumstances are surrounding the reason why.
President Obama started the DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The program protects immigrants who were brought here as children as long as they continue their education and/or have steady employment. There are around 700,000 “Dreamers” (DACA recipients) in danger of deportation. President Trump announced his decision in September and handed the problem to Congress.
CONGRESS COULD DO SOMETHING
Congress could vote on legislation that already exists and the Dreamers would be protected once again. However, Republican members of Congress are dragging their feet and the bill is stalled. No surprise there, of course.
The March deadline technically gives Congress another four months to put something in place. However, there are Dreamers losing their protection right now.
By the March 5th deadline there will be 22,000 immigrant children who have already lost their DACA protection. The reason why is because the Trump administration set an arbitrary deadline within a deadline. In September, they set a date for October 5th, only a month away, for recipients to renew their applications. This was to cover those who would lose their protections before the date in March.
What’s worse, is that they then proceeded to keep that information to themselves. The administration didn’t make a single announcement to the Dreamers to alert them to the new deadline and only a small percentage of them were able to apply in time.
Even some of those children are STILL in danger and the reasons why are incredibly suspicious.
LOST AND FOUND
The circumstances surrounding a few of the applications are surreal.
There are 21 DACA recipients in Chicago and 33 in New York who sent in their applications well ahead of the deadline only to lose their mail in a black hole at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services processing center in Chicago.
New York Times found tracking data for one of the packages. It shows the package arriving in Chicago on September 16th on the way to the regional processing warehouse at the Citizenship and Immigration Services center, as they are the administrators of the program.
Then the package started mysteriously circling Chicago in a bizarre holding pattern.
It reappeared on September 17 and through the 19th it said it was “in transit to destination.” It never arrived, however, because it once again fell off the face of the earth until October 4th. On that day it popped back up and said: “on its way.” It then shows that it finally delivered on the 6th of October, a day too late.
That Dreamer is now in danger of deportation, and they were told there is absolutely nothing they can do.
They aren’t alone, either, as reported above there are at least 50 children in the same position and that number is likely to grow steadily in the coming months.
