Updated: Jan 18, 2018
Swayed by hardliners regarding immigration in the first few weeks of 2018, and an avowed immigration hardliner himself, president Trump had aimed to prevent the recipients of the DACA programme from being granted legal status in the US. Furthermore, the Trump administration announced early in 2018 that it aimed to follow through on previously floated plans to abolish the DACA programme altogether. However, a recent vote (which took place in Washington on January 16th) found that both the Republicans and the Democrats supported granting legal rights to those people living in the US under the DACA programme.
The DACA programme is an acronym for 'Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals'. This scheme enabled people who had illegally entered the US as children (officially, they had to be under 31 in 2012) to enjoy a temporary right to stay in the US. As part of this scheme, they would be able to access various benefits such as applying for a driving license. This temporary right would last for two years, and once those two years expired, the migrant person would be able to apply to have their right renewed. Those who are in the US under the DACA scheme are known as Dreamers, and there are currently around 800,000 Dreamers living in the US. They are principally from Central American countries such as Guatemala and Mexico - countries which are not part of the ESTA scheme and whose citizens therefore cannot partake of the ESTA visa waiver scheme. In order to access the DACA scheme, migrants need to undergo a vetting process to ensure that (among other things) they do not have any criminal convictions and they also need to have completed school or, alternatively, completed military service. When they use the scheme it means that, though they did not apply for a USA visa when they entered the country they are subsequently able to live in the US as with a valid USA visa.
Initially, Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General, had stated that the Trump administration aimed to completely abolish the DACA scheme such that by March 2018 it would no longer be available to those who had illegally entered the US as children. This would put around 800,000 human beings living in the US at imminent risk of deportation - losing their livelihoods, their friendship groups, and their sources of earnings (amongst other disadvantages) in the process. However, when it was debated and put to an initial vote, it was found that both Republican and Democrat members of the Senate were largely in favour of keeping the DACA scheme in place. There are currently around 11 million undocumented migrants living in the US, including the Dreamers. Scrapping the DACA scheme would thus indicate that it is likely that more moves would be made to threaten the safety and security of other undocumented persons living in the United States. The DACA programme was brought in under the Obama era, and it was one of the hallmarks of Obama's presidency. Indeed, during the Obama presidency, an even stronger scheme was repeatedly offered in the Senate which would have granted Dreamers permanent legal residency in the US, with no requirement for them to keep applying to renew their temporary leave to remain at 2 year intervals. However, this bolstered scheme, which would have provided considerable security to the status of Dreamers, repeatedly failed to pass as neither Democrats nor Republicans afforded it their full support.
The prospects look a little brighter for the DACA scheme, though it is still too soon to see precisely how this piece of USA immigration news will pan out. In the next few days and the coming weeks, there will be new developments in this item of USA visa news. It remains to be seen whether the clear bipartisan support for keeping the DACA programme will materialise in the form of the Trump administration performing a volte face and allowing the DACA scheme to continue. It is also possible that, after Trump's presidency ends, the stronger scheme that had been proposed would be raised once more in the Senate and passed, granting Dreamers the security of permanent legal status.
We will keep you up to date on all of the latest developments in US visa and ESTA news, both relating to the DACA scheme and to other key elements of US immigration policy.
© 2011-2024 USA-ESTA.COM. All rights reserved.
We are not affiliated with any government or embassy. This website only provides information about the U.S. ESTA. This website does not provide any services. This website contains links to third-party websites. For additional information, please see our Privacy Policy.