About 100,000 undocumented immigrants who are about to graduate from high school in 2022 will not be eligible for work permits because they are too young to enter the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. ).
Under DACA, undocumented youth under the age of 16 who arrived in the country before 2007, better known as dreamers, were protected from deportation and had permits to study and work.
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But the new generation of dreamers, who came to the country after 2007 at the hands of their parents and without the proper documents, have fallen outside the protection of DACA.
DACA was implemented in 2012 during the Government of Barack Obama.
However, the Donald Trump Administration suspended new applications to enter the program, denying even those in the appropriate age range the protection offered by DACA.
Young immigrants who were brought to the country by their parents as children and do not have legal status in the country, during a conference in front of the Capitol, on May 18, 2022.J.
Scott Applewhite/AP
Since then, the program has been subject to judicial swings and although the Joe Biden government has tried to strengthen it, a federal court in Houston in 2021 again prohibited new income.
So currently only renewal requests are processed.
According to a report by FWD.us, a civil organization that promotes the rights of migrants, 100,000 young undocumented immigrants will graduate from high schools by the end of this spring.
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Only a quarter of these would be eligible to apply for DACA, making them the first generation to mostly fall outside the DACA umbrella.
There are an estimated 600,000 Next Generation Dreamers enrolled in K-12 schools
, according to data from FWD.us.
Of those 600,000, only 21,000 are covered by DACA and are eligible to renew their enrollment in the program.
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“I am part of the generation of Dreamers who were left out of the DACA program because I came to the United States after 2007. Graduating from high school as an undocumented student was extremely difficult and heartbreaking,” Karen Nuñez Sifuentes, coordinator, told The Hill news portal. participation in the organization ConVivir Colorado, a leadership group for immigrant students.
“I was accepted into the school of my dreams, but I couldn't attend because I didn't qualify for financial aid due to my status,” Nuñez added.
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Núñez ended up graduating from the University of MCU Denver, but has not been able to practice his profession in the field of science because he does not have authorization to work in laboratories financed with money from the federal government, reported the aforementioned media.
His story illustrates the challenges facing the new generation of Dreamers, who no longer have the benefits of DACA and, like their predecessors, have known no other homeland than the United States.
