TEXAS, USA — Thursday marks 11 years since the creation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA).
Meanwhile, DACA recipients and immigrant rights groups await a federal judge’s ruling on whether the Obama-era program is legal.
Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen heard oral arguments in a case brought on by a coalition of Republican governors that requests DACA to be terminated over two years.
Hanen declared DACA illegal in 2021, stating the Obama administration failed to follow federal administrative rules when rolling out the program. Approval for first-time DACA applications have been blocked as a result.
Since 2012, DACA has permitted hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to live and work in the country without fearing deportation.
Damaris Gonzalez, community organizer with the Texas Organizing Project (TOP), is among the nearly 600,000 DACA recipients whose future in the U.S. remains uncertain.
She recalled the struggles of her father making a living for the family while in Mexico, which led to pursuing employment opportunities in the Lone Star State. Gonzalez migrated to Texas at 10 years old.
“My father had migrated back a few years before, because in Mexico he couldn’t have a better opportunity,” Gonzalez said. “He had his little shop but the taxes in Mexico were really high so he couldn’t afford to pay them so he ended up closing the shop and migrating to Houston.”
Gonzalez noted the struggles of living in the U.S. undocumented became more prominent when she entered her teenaged years. DACA proved life-changing for Gonzalez.
“When I tried to get a job when I was 15-16-years old, I couldn’t get a job because I didn’t have a social security number,” Gonzalez said. “I was going to community college on a bus because I didn’t have an ID and so those are the kind of opportunities that DACA gave me. It gave me an identity and it gave me the chance to have a better future.”
Continued concerns of deportation are not stopping Gonzalez, TOP and other immigrant rights groups who continue to advocate for a more permanent answer that protects immigrants across American.
“DACA was just a band aid, it was never the solution and what we’re asking is for DACA to continue but also to give us a pathway to a more permanent solution not only us, for our families as well," Gonzalez said.