1.3 "Trump & DACA"

1. Why is President Trump taking action over Labor Day Weekend?

            This is because if Trump didn’t end DACA before September 5, a group of state attorneys general, led by Texas, threatened to sue to do it for him.

2. Who was the DREAM Act intended to benefit?

            DACA is a program intended to protect DREAMers who are unauthorized immigrants brought to the US as children.

3. What did DACA do to help these same people?

            While it didn’t give them a path to citizenship, DACA offered DREAMers a temporary grant of protection from deportation and a permit to work legally in the US.

4. What requirements do people have to meet in order to be eligible for DACA?

            To apply for DACA, immigrants have to have come to the US before 2007, and have been 15 or younger when they arrived and younger than 31 when DACA was created in June 2012. They had to have a nearly spotless criminal record and be enrolled in high school or have a high school diploma or equivalent. And most omportantly, they have to apply.

5. How was the original DREAM Act a compromise on the immigration issue?

            It was a compromise because it did not deport them like conservatives would’ve wanted, but it also did not give them citizenship. It was a middle ground allowing them to have temporary work permits in the US.

6. Why is education hard to obtain for people who would qualify for DACA?

            Education is hard to obtain because they could not fill out financial aid forms for college, because they didn’t have Social Security numbers.

7. How do these obstacles cause people to "adjust their expectations"?

            These obstacles lead to many losing motivation to succeed in school or pursue high-status careers, because they can’t imagine how it would be possible for an “illegal immigrant” to succeed.

8. Why is it important to note that 25% of DACA recipients have a US born child?

            This is very important to note because it means that their children are US Citizens although they are not.

9. When Obama created the policy in 2012, what did it actually do?

            It allowed young unauthorized immigrants who meet certain criteria to apply for a commitment from the federal government for "deferred action for two years and also receive a work permit.

10. What economic impact did DACA have on those who qualified for it?

            Immigrants who’ve received DACA protections have been able to go further, educationally and economically, than other unauthorized immigrants or what they would have without DACA.

11. What are the states suing the federal government for?

            The states want to ask a federal judge who already ruled one Obama-era deferred action program unconstitutional, the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans program, or DAPA, which was stopped before going into effect in 2015, to do the same for DACA.

12. What happens to people protected by DACA if Trump ends it?

            Immigrants working full-time jobs would have to leave them to comply with the law, or continue working at legal risk to themselves and their employers. Immigrants in school would be able to remain enrolled, in nearly all cases, but some might have trouble retaining their financial aid for the rest of their educations; on top of that there is still the threat of deportation.

13.How did the DACA program make it easier to deport these people now?

            Because DACA recipients gave extensive personal information to the government when they applied, many of them can easily be tracked down, arrested, and placed in deportation proceedings once their DACA expires.