El Magonista Newsletter | Vol. 11, No. 19 | JUN. 16, 2023

The program for young migrants is in legal limbo, awaiting a judge's ruling.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, hit a milestone on Thursday, 11 years after it first began.

As the White House touts how DACA has helped support young immigrants who they say have become valuable members of society, some of those same DACA recipients are speaking out as their fate remains in limbo, given the years of legal challenges and controversy around the program.

In written and taped statements first shared with ABC News, President Joe Bidenand Vice President Kamala Harris marked the DACA anniversary by praising the contributions of the young immigrants, sometimes referred to as "Dreamers," who were shielded from deportation.

Biden and Harris also again called on Congress to provide those people with long-term protections through immigration reform -- something Congress has been unable to agree on for years, despite bipartisan interest in the issue.

Under DACA, young people without legal authorization to be in the U.S. were able to work in the country without imminent threat of removal.

"Dreamers are Americans. Many have spent the majority of their lives in the United States. They are our doctors, our teachers, and our small business owners. Dreamers strengthen our economy, enrich our workplaces, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, many served their communities on the frontlines," Biden said in his statement... READ MORE

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A group of migrants who arrived by bus in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday were sent from Texas in a move the city’s mayor called a “despicable stunt” by a Republican governor. 

Forty-two people, including some children, were dropped off at Union Station around 4 p.m. and were being cared for by city agencies and charitable organizations, Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin de León’s office said. 

“They left yesterday and it was 23 hours on the bus and they did not have a chance to eat or to have water,” said Jorge Mario Cabrera of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, who spoke to several migrants.

“They are being fed; they’re taking shelters; they’re talking to attorneys,” he said. “These are migrants that have been allowed by the U.S. to enter because they have credible fears. They have not yet received asylum.”

Many were from Latin American countries, including Honduras and Venezuela, and one person had an immigration appointment in New York, he said.

Mayor Karen Bass said she had instructed city departments to prepare to accept migrants from out of state, after GOP governors began sending asylum-seekers to Democratic states in recent months. 

“This did not catch us off guard, nor will it intimidate us,” Bass said in a statement. “Los Angeles is not a city motivated by hate or fear and we absolutely will not be swayed or moved by petty politicians playing with human lives.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the migrants were sent to Los Angeles because California had declared itself a “sanctuary” for immigrants, extending protections to people living in the country illegally and allowing them to apply for some state benefits... READ MORE

Online misinformation about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals has existed since it began. With the program in court again, advocates fight a new wave of false information.

The uncertainty around the fate of DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, has created "a perfect breeding ground" for misinformation to flourish online, advocates say.

More than 580,000 DACA recipients have been living with uncertainty around the Obama-era program amid a six-year legal battle from the Trump administration as well as from nine Republican-led states. 

DACA, which will mark its 11th anniversary on Thursday, has allowed eligible young immigrants who lack legal status after having been brought to the U.S. as children to work and study without fear of deportation.

The legal back and forth has not only created an unpredictable situation for DACA recipients, it has also become "a perfect breeding ground for bad actors to push this misinformation,” said José Muñoz, a DACA recipient and deputy communications director at United We Dream, the nation’s largest immigrant youth-led organization.

Every time news about DACA arises it is followed by “big peaks” of online chatter that often become vehicles of "harmful narratives,” Muñoz said. Some of these narratives can lead to people into “incorrectly assuming that they can’t renew their DACA, or that DACA has ended for whatever reason.”

While a federal judge blocked the availability of DACA for new applicants, current recipients or those whose DACA status expired less than a year ago can continue to renew it every two years. 

Those who miss the window to renew would need to reapply as new applicants, which is not allowed currently. This can threaten their ability to continue studying, working and accruing savings and financial benefits.

Misinformation about DACA is oftentimes spread online by "well-meaning people" such as relatives and acquaintances who are either speculating about the legal challenges or "unknowingly sharing things that are untrue" on WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and on private DACA-related Facebook groups, three advocates working to counter misinformation about the program told NBC News.

An overwhelming majority of DACA recipients trying to navigate this confusing landscape were born in Mexico and other Latin American countries. The average DACA recipient is 26 to 28 years old, according to Gaby Pacheco, the director of advocacy, development and communications at TheDream.Us, an organization that helps "Dreamers," those brought illegally to the U.S. as children and named for the never-passed DREAM Act, complete college degrees... READ MORE

On the 11th anniversary of DACA, as many as 400,000 people who would be eligible to apply have been shut out because of legal challenges.

Hundreds of thousands of DACA-eligible people have been shut out of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has helped young immigrants access better-paying jobs and educational opportunities and protected them from deportation.

On Thursday, as DACA marked its 11th anniversary, the fate of the program remained up in the air as a six-year court battle plays out following legal challenges from the Trump administration and Republican-led states seeking to fully end it.

In 2021, a federal judge in Texas decided to leave DACA open for current recipients and blocked new applicants from accessing the program. 

Since then, an estimated 400,000 people who would have been eligible to apply for the first time haven’t had access to the program, according to an analysis by FWD.us, a bipartisan group supporting immigration reform. 

About 580,000 current recipients have been able to continue to renew their DACA status every two years. 

"This limbo of DACA not only impacts those who currently have DACA, but those who qualify, those who were in line trying to get their DACA," said Catherine Lee, the national communications manager at United We Dream, the country’s largest immigrant youth-led organization.

The Obama-era program has allowed eligible young immigrants who lack legal status after having been brought to the U.S. as children, also referred to as Dreamers, to work and study without fear of deportation.

Among the 400,000 DACA-eligible population who have been shut out, people like Aurora Lozano Chavez and Julian Cornejo stand out... READ MORE

Democrats blame Republicans for the fact that Congress has not passed a major immigration reform bill since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 — 37 years ago.

While Republicans have opposed the legalization programs Democrats have tried to establish, that doesn’t mean that every Republican is opposed to legalization. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, 37 percent of Republicans view establishing a legalization program for most of America’s undocumented immigrants as an important goal.

Democrats aren’t free from blame. They could have passed a bill with a legalization program without a single GOP vote when Obama was president: From January 2009 to January 2011, they held a large majority in the House of Representatives, and until Scott Brown’s special election in 2010, they had enough votes in the Senate to stop a Republican filibuster. Even then, they needed only one Republican vote.

They chose not to do it. 

Also, Democrats could have tried harder to get Republican cooperation. They have proposed pairing legalization with border security measures that would assist in detecting and apprehending illegal crossers. But the border can’t be secured by apprehending illegal crossers if they are going to be released into the country. The Biden administration has been particularly bad in this respect, releasing more than an estimated 2 million undocumented immigrants into the country.

Democrats have done little, if anything, to make legalization more acceptable to Republicans.

However, I think such a deal is possible... READ MORE

WASHINGTON, D.C. —  More than four dozen immigrant rights groups sent a letter Wednesday to California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, urging him to help 36 migrants who were flown to Sacramento by Florida contractors secure visas to remain in the U.S.

The news comes as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced that he had sent a busload of migrants to Los Angeles, saying in a news release that “border towns remain overwhelmed.” The 42 migrants, including eight children, arrived at Union Station on Wednesday afternoon. Texas and Arizona leaders have bused thousands of migrants to Democratic strongholds since last year. 

Bonta demanded records Wednesday from Florida authorities that could shed light on the decisions that led to the transport of those migrants, which he has called a manipulative political stunt. The attorney general’s office is conducting an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the transport and evaluating potential criminal or civil action if those orchestrating the trip are found to have misled migrants or violated laws against kidnapping.

“We need to understand the circumstances that led to the implementation of this operation — which was apparently paid for by Florida taxpayer dollars — and the decisions and directives that led to this questionable act,” Bonta said in a statement. “The information gathered will be crucial in determining whether the law has been violated and, if so, what subsequent steps are required to prevent such disregard for human rights from recurring.”

On June 2 and 5, two groups of migrants from Venezuela and Colombia were driven from El Paso, Texas, to New Mexico and then flown to Sacramento. Those arriving June 2 were left at the door of the Catholic Diocese with documents from Florida’s “Voluntary Migrant Transport Program.” Florida officials pushed back on the allegation that migrants were misled or transported against their will. 

Vertol Systems Co, the contractor that facilitated the transport, also coordinated similar flights for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that took dozens of Venezuelan migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., last year. 

The migrants flown to Sacramento told officials they were promised someone would help them find work. At the Catholic Diocese, two men said they would return but drove off, leaving the migrants behind, Bonta said... READ MORE

SACRAMENTO —  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ crass stunt of flying desperate immigrants to California and dumping them on the doorstep of a Catholic Diocese headquarters showed us one thing: He’s not fit to be America’s president.

It’s not because of his sensible view that we must gain more control of our southern border. Any rational person would agree that the border is too porous.

Members of Congress are trapped in their political silos and can’t muster the courage to venture out and compromise on substantive immigration reform. Both parties exploit the issue in order to fire up their political bases.

What makes DeSantis unfit for the Oval Office is how he cavalierly he treated hapless people as political pawns in a crude, uncompassionate effort to bolster his flagging campaign for the Republican presidential nomination while playing “gotcha” with California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Really, do we want a commander in chief who plays petty, reckless games with our adversaries? A president, say, who buzzes a Chinese warship as payback for a Chinese destroyer cutting across the bow of an American Naval vessel?

Rash, stubborn, impetuous presidents can create all sorts of havoc, including war.

Also, do we want a president who treats the most vulnerable people among us as political chess pieces? Who wastes taxpayers’ money trying to show up a nagging critic such as Newsom?

That said, California’s governor also has not shown statesmanlike qualities in recent months by goading DeSantis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other red state leaders.

Rather than focusing full-time on the California problems he was elected to solve — homelessness, unaffordable housing, potential wildfires — Newsom has been sporadically and loudly critiquing the conservative policies of other states.

The consensus of political pundits is that Newsom is trying to position himself to run for president, if not next year, in 2028. He denies it and I believe him. But he does obviously want to be a national torchbearer for progressive causes.

If that’s his priority, then he should run next year for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Meanwhile, to prove his effectiveness as a leader, he should spend more time on the public business he was assigned.

Newsom’s latest attention-grabber last week was to announce he’ll lead an effort to amend the U.S. Constitution with a specific set of gun controls. It has no chance of being adopted.

But it makes a nice nationwide talking point for Democratic voters and a lucrative fundraising tool for his new federal political action committee: the Campaign for Democracy. In fact, his PAC immediately began using the proposed constitutional amendment to solicit donations... READ MORE