San Francisco, CA — CAA joins immigrant rights organizations and directly impacted community members in urging the Supreme Court to uphold the continuation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program. All immigrants, regardless of their immigration status, have the right to stay and live with dignity and respect.
On Tuesday, November 12, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear from three consolidated cases filed in California, Washington, D.C., and New York, challenging the Administration’s decision to end the program. The Supreme Court’s decision will determine if the Trump Administration has the authority to end the Obama-era program. The Court’s decision is likely to be announced by the summer of 2020.
The DACA program, which began under President Obama in 2012, is a community victory fought for and won by undocumented grassroots leaders to bring temporary relief from deportation and employment authorization for young people. The program has since supported nearly 800,000 individuals with access to higher education and stable employment. The institutionalization of the program encouraged community activism by lifting up stories of undocumented and mixed status families and exposing systematic barriers in our immigration system. The rescission of the original DACA program by Trump’s administration in 2017 was an exercise to destabilize and increase fear of deportation among immigrant communities.
CAA Immigrant Rights Program Manager, Amy Lin, states, “The DACA program is a testament of community power. Those current recipients have built their lives here by being able to access driver’s licenses, health insurance, and opportunities to education and employment with fewer barriers. The Administration’s particular exercise of power is yet another attempt to roll back these advancements of basic rights and protections and put communities in exploitative conditions.”
While the Supreme Court hears this case, past and current DACA recipients can still renew their DACA, and should contact CAA for more information regarding community filing and fee assistance. Additionally, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is proposing fee increases to DACA applications, amongst other application processes such as naturalization and, for the first time, asylum. Community members interested in learning more about how these proposed fee increases may impact their immigration application, or to submit a public comment before Friday, December 13, 2019 opposing these fee increases, should call CAA at (415) 761-3222 to schedule an appointment with CAA staff.
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Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) is a community-based civil rights organization in San Francisco. Our mission is to protect the civil and political rights of Chinese Americans and to advance multiracial democracy in the United States. We advocate for systemic change that protects immigrant rights, promotes language diversity, and remedies racial injustice.
