SCOTUS decision only a delay of execution for DACA

The Supreme Court’s decision “in favor” of DACA isn’t a pardon. It’s merely a delay of execution.

Headlines across the news spectrum have implied the Supreme Court’s ruling saved Dreamers (DACA recipients, so called for the failed “DREAM Act”), but the court’s opinion didn’t find issue with the desire to dismantle DACA, but with the methods employed to do so. Which means that DACA still has the potential to be on the chopping block.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was a stop-gap measure issued during the Obama administration after the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act failed in Congress yet again. The DREAM Act would have provided a path to legal citizenship for children who were brought here as illegal immigrants. The first iteration of the DREAM Act was introduced in 2001 and had bipartisan support. Since then, around 10 variations have been presented to Congress, according to the American Immigration Council, and although each has received bipartisan support, none have become law.

In 2012, DACA was issued to temporarily protect Dreamers from deportation and give them authorization to work. DACA does not provide a pathway to citizenship, and Dreamers must renew their DACA status every two years. Many Dreamers have only ever known America as their home.

When the Trump administration halted DACA in 2017, no new applications were accepted, and current enrollees whose status would expire after March 5, 2018, would not be allowed to renew. Lower court rulings determined Dreamers couldn’t be prevented from renewing applications, but new requests continued to be denied.

Last Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling only decided Trump had improperly ended the program, though it is within his rights as president to end DACA. To put this in perspective, Trump’s 2017 travel ban targeting Muslims was initially struck down by the courts, but the third version — altered to include North Koreans and Venezuelan officials (0.00008% of visas in 2016) — was upheld by the Supreme Court because it no longer targeted only majority-Muslim countries.

Reports say Trump can’t get a new DACA-killing order through the federal rules-making process by the November election. Don’t assume that Trump won’t pick up where he left off if he gets a second term or that others won’t take up the cause in his stead. This is why the Supreme Court ruling is only a delay of execution for DACA, not the pardon many are celebrating it as.

There are 650,000 Dreamers now and 29,000 of those work on the front lines of health care, helping our nation fight the global pandemic. According to the AP, two-thirds of Americans support a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, so Congress needs to get on the same page. Congress needs to pass legislation to give children who were brought here illegally a path to citizenship. Dreamers don’t deserve to live in fear of being deported to a country they can barely remember. They are as American as us — all they need is the official status.