Sonoma County DACA youth face renewal deadline with a sense of resignation
For Sonoma County immigrants participating in the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Thursday’s final renewal deadline came and went with a sense of uncertainty, but also hope.
Across the country, 77 percent, or 118,000, of the 154,000 DACA recipients eligible for a two-year renewal applied for the Obama-era program, which shielded from deportation undocumented immigrants who were brought into the United States as children. That’s a fraction of the country’s 800,000 DACA youth.
In Sonoma County, that renewal period ending Thursday benefited only an estimated 430 of the county’s roughly 3,000 DACA youth.
The program, which President Trump ended Sept. 5, allowed participants to legally work, obtain driver’s licenses, serve in the military and more easily pursue a higher education.
Unless Congress steps in to resurrect DACA, the vast majority of DACA youth in Sonoma County are facing a return to their prior status. Among those not eligible to apply for an extension is Omar Santiago, the 22-year-old president of Sonoma State University’s UndocuScholars Coalition, who first applied for protected status on his 18th birthday, March 9, 2013. After two renewals, his DACA protections end March 2019.
“I am feeling determined,” he said. “I’m always hopeful, for sure, as long as I can breathe, I can do something for my community.”
Sticking together
He feels uncertain about the future, too, and like other DACA recipients, hopeful that with the program’s discontinuation, Congress could create a better path to citizenship for people like him.
“A lot of people are actually going and emailing their congressmen, their representatives,” he said. “That’s the idea going on right now, so people are really, you know, pushing for (a path).”
Santiago came to the United States from Mexico at the age of 5, sitting alongside his younger brothers in the backseat of a car driven by people pretending to be his parents. His real parents, meanwhile, made the long, dangerous crossing through the desert.
But that’s all he knows. They don’t like to talk about it, he said.
For now, Santiago is focused on the future. A history major, he hopes to attend graduate school after leaving Sonoma State.
“I’m going to keep on fighting,” he said. “And I know that I have allies with me, people that recognize my struggles and the struggles of other undocumented people ... If you stick together, anything is possible.”
Bay Area immigration attorney Christopher Kerosky pointed out that President Trump’s 2-year renewal period for DACA youth only applied to a small number of DACA recipients.
When Trump announced on Sept. 5 he was eliminating the program, he gave those whose DACA expired by March 5, 2018 the opportunity to renew. However, those eligible had to renew by Thursday.
All other DACA participants - about ?2,500 youth in Sonoma County, according to rough estimates - could not extend their protections. Trump challenged Congress to craft a legislative solution for DACA youth.
“I think there’s a lot of desperation,” said Kerosky.
“You’re talking about people who have been integrated in our society for the last several years, which means that many of them have jobs in back offices, in high tech, in other office jobs that have relatively high salaries.”
Some of them work for the government, he said. “And all of them will lose their positions unless there’s a congressional solution within the next few months,” Kerosky said.
Since Sept. 5, the county has hosted four separate clinics for people seeking answers following Trump’s decision to phase out DACA as part of an initiative intended to alleviate fears among the undocumented community.
Could lose jobs
In all, about 100 people attended the clinics, where immigration attorneys were on hand to provide assistance and information, said Alegria De La Cruz, chief deputy county counsel and coordinator for the county’s immigration initiative.
“More than anything, now is the time to continue to have a conversation with each other and share stories so that people really understand some of the complicated issues that we face, that we need to solve together, and that people (understand they) are not alone in this time,” she said.
One key concern is what will happen to all the DACA recipients who are now legally employed.
At Petaluma Health Center, some 10 percent of the roughly 40 employees are DACA youth. Pedro Toledo, chief administrative officer of the Petaluma Health Center, said if Congress does not come up with a solution, the health center will have to let go of its DACA employees.
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