Amid latest court ruling against DACA, young immigrants face perpetual uncertainty

The text message alerting Nour Kalbouneh of the latest DACA ruling pinged into her smartphone Wednesday. It wasn’t great news: A Texas judge had ruled that the program that had protected her from deportation and allowed her to work in the U.S. was unlawful. Still, Kalbouneh, 28, didn’t flinch. She had seen too many shifts in the policy to overreact. “We’re very aware of the reality of losing DACA and what that could mean to me,” said Kalbouneh, who arrived from the Palestinian territories with her family at age 5. Today, she works for the ACLU-Wisconsin in Milwaukee. “But I’ve been thrown in this loop over and over again. After a while you just become numb to the situation.” Nour Kalbouneh, 26, works for the ACLU of Wisconsin and will begin law school in the fall. She hopes to work exonerating unjustly accused inmates and later become a law professor Ð goals realized in large part through DACA. Wednesday’s ruling by a Texas federal judge that DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, was unlawful sent another ripple of uncertainty and angst through the more than 600,000 DACA recipients who are studying or working in the United States. The ruling doesn’t require the government to take action against current DACA recipients, who can continue to renew every two years. But it bars the government from approving new applications. The case is likely to bring renewed attention to immigration as a political issue heading into the 2024 presidential election. Experts and advocates said the case probably will be appealed by the Biden administration and be decided by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and, ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court. DACA, now in its 11th year, has been under steady attack – from former President Donald Trump, a barrage of lawsuits and state and federal lawmakers who argue it is illegal to allow some immigrants to stay in the U.S. without an act of Congress. In that time, a policy that began as a landmark immigration solution has shrunk to serve a niche group, living in perpetual uncertainty. “The program is still in place but on life support,” said Julia Gelatt, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, “with a diminishing number of beneficiaries.” Is DACA still active in 2023? FILE - Susana Lujano, left, a dreamer from Mexico who lives in Houston, joins other activists to rally in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, June 15, 2022. A federal judge on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) ORG XMIT: NYWS308 President Barack Obama introduced DACA in 2012 as a temporary relief for young migrants until Congress passed more permanent solutions. It never did, and today recipients cling to the tenuous policy as a portal to opportunity. DACA beneficiaries are protected from deportation and given permission to legally work in the United States. The policy serves immigrants who were brought here as children under the idea that they should not be deported to a home country they had never really known. To qualify, recipients needed to have arrived in the U.S. before age 16, be enrolled in school, have graduated or been honorably discharged from the military, and never been convicted of a major crime, among other requirements. The benefit needs to be renewed every two years. The program has benefited more than 800,000 immigrant youth since its inception. There are now more than 600,000 DACA recipients, including activists, college students and entrepreneurs. No new recipients have been allowed into the program since it was challenged in the White House and the courts starting in 2017. The DACA-eligible population earned $23.4 billion in 2017, up from almost $19.9 billion in 2015, according to a report by the bipartisan research and advocacy organization New American Economy. More than 93% of DACA-eligible people were actively employed in 2017. What does judge's latest ruling mean? Immigration rights activists take part in a rally in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC on November 12, 2019. - The US Supreme Court hears arguments on November 12, 2019 on the fate of the "Dreamers," an estimated 700,000 people brought to the country illegally as children but allowed to stay and work under a program created by former president Barack Obama.Known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, the program came under attack from President Donald Trump who wants it terminated, and expired last year after the Congress failed to come up with a replacement. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images) ORIG FILE ID: AFP_1M776J On Wednesday, Judge Andrew Hanen ruled that a recent effort by the Biden administration to make the DACA policy more permanent by codifying it into federal regulation was unlawful. “Congress, for any number of reasons, has decided not to pass DACA-like legislation," Hanen wrote. "The executive branch cannot usurp the power bestowed on Congress by the Constitution − even to fill a void." The Biden administration was expected to appeal the ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the case could wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court. It wouldn’t be the first time. After Trump canceled the program in 2017, the Supreme Court declared in a 5-4 ruling that the president didn’t follow the law. If the Supreme Court ultimately shuts down DACA, its recipients will be at risk of being deported. Frankie Miranda, president and chief executive of the Hispanic Federation, a nonprofit advocacy group, said his group will be pushing Congress to make more permanent solutions for DACA recipients. “We’re not putting any of our hopes in the Supreme Court,” he said. “What we can do is mobilize our base and organizations and thousands of members of our community and demand action from members of Congress.” What’s next for DACA and its recipients? Appeals and legal wrangling are expected next, and it could take years for the case to wend through the courts, said Gelatt, the policy analyst. The wait will feel harshest for the more than 58,000 young migrants who qualify for DACA but have not been allowed to apply, she said. These people have met the standards but reached the age to apply in 2017 just as the program shut down. For Leo Medina, 25, Wednesday’s news felt particularly devastating. As a DACA recipient, he was able to land a well-paying job as a surgical technician at a hospital in the Dallas area. His brother, Carlos, 22, however, is waiting for the program to reopen so he can apply and reap some of the same benefits and protection. The Medina brothers were brought into the country without proper documentation at a young age. The constantly shifting nature of DACA makes it hard to focus on their future, Leo Medina said. “It’s disappointing,” he said. “We’re trying to better our family and better ourselves. But if we don’t have that support, there’s not much we could do.” Kalbouneh, of Milwaukee, said she would like to see Congress step up and give DACA recipients a pathway to citizenship, given how much they’ve contributed to the U.S. “This is where we built our home, and this country expects a lot from us and expects us to succeed,” she said, “but doesn’t want to give anything in return.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.