Disclaimer: This story utilizes an anonymous source in an effort to gain insight and further depth. The source chose to remain anonymous out of wishes to maintain privacy and a fear of the current political climate. Some background on the source: Anonymous is a 20-something student at the University of Wyoming who came to the U.S. under illegal pretenses. They came here fleeing from gang violence in their home country located in Central America and spent 28 days traveling through Central America, three of which were spent in the deserts of Mexico, to make it to the U.S.
“It’s an important program.” – Anonymous
The Program
DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is a program that former-President Barrack Obama created during his tenure in an effort to address the issue of immigration status for children who came to the United States illegally.
According to a Newsweek article, there are approximately 788,000 people currently enrolled in the DACA program. In order for people to be eligible for DACA, they must have been under the age of 31 in June of 2015 and must have been a resident of the United States since 2007.
There is no specific counseling or assistance available to recipients of DACA at the University of Wyoming.
“So, there’s nobody that just works with DACA, there are a few individuals on campus who will help them file paperwork to extend their DACA, who will give them general legal counsel about it,” Maria Almendares, immigration coordinator, said.
While Almendares does provide immigration services, she does not provide them to DACA recipients in any official capacity. Almendares’s primary job is to provide these resources to international students coming to the university to study either on study abroad programs, exchange programs or just to attend the university.
DACA, as a program, provides many opportunities to the immigrants who came here without following the proper channels.
“It allows them to get a work permit, it allows them to get a social security number, it allows them to be on the books, as we say, and allows them to go to school because many schools require some kind of status to go to school,” Almendares said. “So, it provides them all of those opportunities.”
DACA is not a permanent solution, however. DACA provides only two years of this status before a recipient has to reapply.
“The idea (of DACA) being, that eventually we would hope that Congress would pass some kind of a, like the DREAM Act, or some kind of a bill that would then provide them with some kind of path to residency or citizenship, because as it is, DACA is only a temporary stay,” Almendares said.
A common misconception among people is that immigrants here on DACA have a choice to get citizenship, which Almendares was quick to clear up.
“They can’t just apply for a green card. They can’t just change to a student visa, there is no path forward for them,” Almendares said. “So, that was the program, was that just with, created with the idea that then they would maybe have the chance to get residency or citizenship.”
However, a change of pace has come with a change of leadership for the U.S.
“Still hopeful, we have about 6 months,” Almendares said. “Still hopeful for that to happen.”
“I feel like, I don’t want to overthink it, but at the same time I can’t pretend like I’m going to be okay because I don’t know if that’s going to happen. At times I feel like I don’t really, I can’t think about a future, just because I don’t know where I’ll be in 2 years.” – Anonymous
The Problem
Things have gone steadily for the five years DACA has been an active program in the United States. However, in recent weeks, the program has been in the headlines with President Donald Trump discussing the program and the re-introduction of the program into the legislative process and the legislative branch.
Tensions rose for DACA recipients as Trump mentioned the re-examination of the immigration program via a series of tweets.
“I like his, his premise of, ‘I’m going to undo it so that it can go through the right processes of going through legislative branch,’” Andrew Server, senior adviser to College Republicans and graduate student, said. “So that the people that are more directly elected by the people can have more of a say, and that it goes through the process that the founders intended for legislation like this.”
For many people, this issue has seemed to be polarizing. However, it might not be as right and wrong, or as left and right, as people make it out to be, Server said.
“It’s not as black and white of an issue as I think a lot of people are trying to portray it out to be as,” Server said. “There’s not just one specific evil on one side or the other, it’s not evil Trump trying to kick out everybody. It’s not evil immigrants trying to come here and take your jobs or do like lines of anything or do anything, commit any crimes in particular.”
“We didn’t come here because we wanted to. Like, the thing is, people know that kind of, but they don’t know that my parents didn’t want us here either…Our family became involved with the gangs, without wanting to…We came here literally running from gang violence, and that’s what people don’t understand. Like, I didn’t ask for this. ” – Anonymous
Server made sure to point out when College Republicans has discussed the issue in the past it was with the mindset of legalities and not necessarily with empathy. However, that does not mean that some of the members of the club do not understand the moral implications of this issue.
“And, to be honest, with a bunch of the members that I talked with, they understand the empathy side of things and they are kind of willing to negotiate, it’s not just a: ‘Hey, get the heck out of here, you’re not supposed to be here,’” Server said. “They do understand the childhood aspect of it all.”
These aspects of morality and empathy have made it difficult to come to a consensus on the issue.
“It’s gray,” Server said. “And it’s hard to come to a decisive and concise stance on a gray issue, especially if you act on empathy and consider those aspects. So, here we are.”
Seth Sigward Haack 