By: Roxana Kopetman ~ OC Register ~ June 11, 2019
Under the Trump administration, DACA recipients lost the ability to legally travel outside the U.S.
A group of young Southern California immigrants who hold protected DACA status are in Washington D.C. this week to advocate for a little known provision in immigration law that would allow them to travel abroad.
More than 40 young immigrants with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, led by a former professor from Cal State Long Beach, are holding seminars and meeting with legislators to push for the restoration of advance parole, which allows non-citizens to leave the United States for humanitarian, employment or educational purposes and then re-enter legally.
The travel authorization is available to other non-citizens but no longer an option for those with DACA status.
That wasn’t the case prior to September 2017, when the Trump administration began a phase-out of the DACA program, which was created by President Barack Obama. The DACA program, which is renewable and comes with a work permit, has been in a limbo state ever since. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to meet Thursday to discuss whether it may take up the DACA litigation for next term, CNN reported.
Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives last week passed a bill that would offer a path to citizenship to some 2 million unauthorized immigrants brought to the United States as children, a group sometimes known as “Dreamers.” Introduced by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Los Angeles, the American Dream, and Promise Act, HR-6 — which would include nearly 700,000 immigrants who have DACA — has little to no chance of passing in the Senate.
“We cannot rely on HR-6 getting passed in the Senate… So we need to move on and stay on target,” Armando Vazquez-Ramos, a retired Cal State Long Beach professor, told a group of DACA-holders and others who gathered Monday in D.C. Vazquez-Ramos is president of the California-Mexico Studies Center, Inc., a non-profit leading the campaign to restore the travel permission for those with DACA. This is the second time this year that Vazquez-Ramos has led a coalition to D.C. to advocate for travel rights.
The travel authorization is important to many young immigrants, who want to visit relatives and study or work abroad. It’s also important because by leaving the country and re-entering legally, with advance parole, they may later have an easier time applying for permanent legal status, usually through marriage to a U.S. citizen.
Among the local legislators who support their campaign are Representatives Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, Nanette Diaz-Barragan, D-San Pedro, Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, and Linda Sanchez, D-Whittier.
Those who oppose restoring the advance parole authorization call it a loophole that would help people who entered the country illegally get a possible back door to eventual citizenship.
Source: Roxana Kopetman ~ OC Register ~ June 11, 2019
