It’s March 5. Here’s What You Should Know About DACA and Dream Act
4 things you should know now that Trump’s March 5th deadline is here.
Today is the arbitrary deadline that President Trump announced for Congress to pass a permanent solution for youth immigrants known as Dreamers. After Trump ended the program on September 5th, 122 immigrant youth began losing their protection each day. Today that number would have skyrocketed.
Fortunately, thanks to a series of court decisions, DACA is still alive and immigrant youth can continue to renew if they have previously had DACA. But beginning today, the number of youth at risks of losing status increases, and hundreds of thousands more remain without protection from being ripped from their families.
This is what you need to know now that Trump’s March 5th deadline is here.
- Youth who have or had DACA can still renew – The courts have opened a window for immigrant youth who have or previously had DACA to renew their protections for another 2 years. While this is a small victory, future court rulings could reverse this and close renewals. Immigrant youth cannot continue living in limbo and need a permanent solution to live their lives in peace. You should submit an application form at least 150 days (or five months) before your current DACA status expires.
- Close to 1 million Dreamers cannot apply for DACA and won’t receive protections unless Congress acts – Immigrant youth like 10 year old Rosa Maria were not yet old enough to apply for DACA when it was ended. Others qualified but hadn’t yet applied while more still didn’t qualify but would qualify for the Dream Act. For these immigrant youth, the court rulings do not provide an avenue to protection. We need Congress to act and pass a #DreamActNow.
- Congress can still act – The time is now for congress to act. The only way to protect DACAmented youth and their families is by passing a Dream Act. Call your congressional representatives today and let them know we need a clean Dream Act now.
- President Trump created this crisis and has the power to fix it – After he ended DACA in September, Trump tweeted that he would revisit DACA if Congress didn’t come to a solution by his March 5th deadline. He can fix this by reinstating DACA until Congress acts to pass a permanent solution. President Trump created this crisis, and has the power to fix it.
