Dreamers are American in every way that counts. They deserve more protection.
I came to the U.S. as an undocumented child. Dreamers like me have gone to school, started families, paid taxes, and built businesses. Now, as DACA turns 12, all that could be taken away.
As someone who grew up undocumented in the U.S., I understand all too well the pain of living in the shadows and the stress caused by that kind of endless uncertainty. I have spoken out many times over the years about the urgent need to protect “Dreamers,” people who were brought to the United States as children and have lived here for nearly all their lives.
I was so thrilled on June 15, 2012, when President Barack Obama established the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which let Dreamers work and avoid deportation. These are the kinds of protections I dreamed of as a child, which give a new generation of Dreamers the ability to build lives for themselves in the only country they have ever known.
The program has been a tremendous success. Today, there are more than 500,000 DACA recipients living and thriving in the U.S., and more than a million U.S. citizens share a household with a DACA recipient. These are people who have gone to school, started families, paid taxes, and built businesses. They’re people who have deep roots in their local communities.
But all that could be ripped away.
All that could be ripped away.
Two years ago, on the 10th anniversary of DACA, I urged Congress to protect Dreamers by passing the Dream and Promise Act, which offers a path to permanent resident status. But the bill remains stalled in Congress. Now, as I write on the 12th anniversary, I fear this may be the last one.
The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is currently considering a challenge to the legality of the DACA program, and no matter how it rules, the question is likely to be ultimately resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court.
If the program is overturned, it will have a devastating effect on millions of families who will once again find themselves in the kind of limbo I grew up with. I would never wish that on anyone.
Upending the lives of so many families who simply want to live in the country they have always considered home would not only be a moral stain on our country but would weaken the communities we all call home.
» READ MORE: As child of the ‘American experiment,’ I believe we can do better for Dreamers | Opinion
The average DACA recipient has lived in this country for 25 years. There are more than 300,000 DACA recipients who are working, many in critical, understaffed fields like education and medicine, and they are the parents of more than 300,000 U.S. citizen children. To deny them a pathway to citizenship is not just needlessly cruel, it’s cutting off our own nose to spite our face.
Protecting these families is clearly a moral imperative, but it’s also incredibly popular. Polls have consistently shown that voters are strongly in favor of providing paths to legal status for DACA recipients, with approval numbers above 70%. It is also popular with a clear majority of Republican voters. There is simply no good reason, political or otherwise, why we shouldn’t allow Dreamers to formally call this country home.
When President Obama introduced DACA, he said: “These are young people who study in our schools, they play in our neighborhoods, they’re friends with our kids, they pledge allegiance to our flag. They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper.”
If Congress won’t act, then President Joe Biden has the opportunity to cement his own legacy as a president who looks out for the most vulnerable among us. Using his executive powers, he could provide protections for millions of other undocumented Americans, such as the more than 800,000 undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens.
For instance, he can offer a form of parole or legal protection that allows undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens to legally remain and work in the country while their cases are processed.
The president can also update existing programs that would allow immigrant parents of U.S. citizen children with disabilities to get on a path to citizenship. These are all husbands, wives, mothers, and fathers of American citizens who fear losing their loved ones because of outdated laws and senseless bureaucracy. President Biden can change that and keep American families together.
President Biden has rightly criticized former President Donald Trump for his cruel policies of separating families at the border, but family separations don’t just happen at our borders. It’s also important not to overlook the families with deep roots here who have to live in constant fear that they will be taken away from the ones they love most.
We need to live up to the promise of America by protecting those who, like I once was, are forced to live invisible lives.
America is at its best when it is compassionate and welcoming. These qualities are what make us worthy of being a “city upon a hill” that can serve as a shining example to the rest of the world.
Gisele Barreto Fetterman is a firefighter, the founder of multiple nonprofits, the former second lady of Pennsylvania, and the wife of U.S. Sen. John Fetterman. She lives in Braddock, Pa.