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OUDAILY
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NEW SHOP OPENS IN CROSS • 3
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CAITLYN EPES/THE DAILY
A photo illustration of Carlos Rubio, an industrial and systems engineering junior, and Vanessa Meraz, a political science and letters senior. Both students are DACA recipients, and September marks one year since President Trump announced his plans to end the DACA program.
UNCERTAIN FUTURE More than a year later, DACA students still face many of the same fears, questions as legislators stall ANNA BAUMAN • @ANNABAUMAN2
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arlos Rubio was driving down Interstate 44 to Norman from his home in Tulsa when he got a text from a concerned friend that prompted him to check the news. What he saw made him feel as if his life was flashing before his eyes. It was Sept. 5, 2017, and P r e s i d e n t D o n a l d Tr u m p ’s administration had just an nounced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, would end. The program is how Rubio and nearly 700,000 other young adults who were brought to the U.S. as undocumented children get a renewable, two-year protection against the threat of deportation. The weight of announcement made the rest of that drive one Rubio will never forget. “That was probably the heaviest car ride I think I’ve had between coming home and coming to school,” the industrial and systems engineering junior said. “I didn’t know the severity of it, I just knew that there was a threat potentially — it could harm me, it could harm my family, it could harm my sister, and then the students that go here.” It’s been a little more than a year since that day, but many of the same doubts, fears and questions that overwhelmed Rubio
and OU’s nearly 80 other DACA recipients last fall still linger. Since then, Congress has failed to pass a legislative solution, and the issue has been taken up in court, where three district judges have issued injunctions that protect the program from termination. The cases could work their way up to the Supreme Court, or Congress could propose legislation on the program, said Nima Zecavati, OU’s immigration attorney. There are many competing factors that make it difficult to predict what exactly will happen to the program and when, he said. “With the midterm elections coming up, there’s hopefully a good chance that there could be enough change to create some kind of legislation that finally passes through Congress,” Zecavati said. “My hope is that it doesn’t work its way up to the Supreme Court and that sometime between now and the end of June, which would be when the case would possibly go to the Supreme Court, Congress will finally be able to find some kind of permanent solution — that’s the hope.” While legislators stall and courts battle over the issue, the young adults whose futures are on the table have been left in a
June 15, 2012
state of limbo. It’s a feeling Rubio describes as floating through space — moving through life and school with an ever-present question mark.
“I still haven’t
lost that desire to keep going. I’m very tired, but we can’t afford to be exhausted. We can’t afford to be tired or to give up, and we’re not going to.” VANESSA MERAZ, OU STUDENT AND DACA RECIPIENT
“ With any student, there’s going to be a degree of uncertainty, but I think there’s an a d d e d d e gre e to t h at w h e n you’re undocumented,” Rubio said, “just because literally tomorrow (U.S. Attorney General) Jeff Sessions or the president could come out and say something, which will always be at the back of our heads.” Another threat blossomed as recently as August, when a Texas
lawsuit questioned the lawfulness of the 2012 DACA program itself. The court denied the request to end the program, but it caused a scare in the community as many, including Rubio and his younger sister, scrambled to renew their statuses and extend their protection as long as possible. Vanessa Meraz, a DACA re cipient and political science and letters senior, applied for a renewal during the same frenzy last month and received her notice of acceptance on Sept. 5, the exact anniversary of the day the program had been rescinded. It was a bittersweet moment, she said. “I understand the intricacies of immigration policy and understand that even if I’m safe, there are thousands of people in the U.S. right now that aren’t,” Meraz said, “because they can’t apply for DACA in the first place.” Meraz and Rubio are both protected by deferred action until the fall of 2020, but the impending court decisions and potential for legislation leave much unclear. “There are many big question marks in the life of the Dreamer communit y, but a really big one is just like what tomorrow looks like — in general, but
A New York federal judge also ordered the administration to resume DACA renewals.
A California district court issued an injunction ordering Trump to resume DACA renewals.
Sept. 5, 2017
Trump’s administration announced the DACA program would be rescinded rejecting all new and renewal applications.
See DACA page 2
Feb. 13, 2018
Jan. 9, 2018
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was first implemented under President Barack Obama’s administration.
specifically with status,” Meraz said. “Because of the way that this year has looked, the next months could look a lot of different ways.” Making plans is difficult when the program’s future is unclear, but that has not prevented the Dreamers, as DACA recipients are sometimes k nown, from doing so. Meraz plans to move to Washington, D.C. to do immigration policy research for a year before going to law school with the ultimate goal of becoming an immigration attorney. Rubio no longer wants to be an engineer but hopes to pursue education and work with kids. DACA allows its recipients to apply for a work permit. Without it, these young people would have difficulty working in the U.S. in pursuit of their goals. “Every day I think it weighs a little bit more,” Rubio said, “because I get closer and closer to the end of my collegiate career.” Meraz, whose family immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico, said she and other Dreamers must keep moving forward with their goals. She said she refuses to let her parents’ sacrifice in bringing to her to this country go in vain.
Jan. 13, 2018
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services began accepting DACA renewals.
Aug. 31, 2018
A Texas judge denied a request by several states to end DACA based on a challenge to the lawfulness of the program.