Close to Home: Helping to keep this dream alive

Victor Escobar grew up in Northern California, and his youth was similar to most other gifted young people here. He finished high school and college with honors and dreamed of a career in law. By all appearances, his life was full of promise.

But Escobar was born in Peru, and he was undocumented. His family came with a visa, but they were never able to obtain a green card. So, in fact, he had no right to work or even remain in the United States.

The week he was supposed to attend his college graduation, he was instead turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a result of a routine traffic stop. They incarcerated him in an immigration jail in the Arizona desert.

Escobar was facing deportation when President Barack Obama's first executive order (known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) came to the rescue. He was able to get out of from jail, obtain a work permit and have his deportation case dismissed. This fall, he will attend his first year at Hastings Law School in San Francisco.

For four years, people like Escobar have come forward to identify themselves to immigration authorities all across the United States. They have come with tidy stacks of records from their years in the United States - vaccination cards, dog-eared school report cards, pay stubs from high school jobs, college awards. All of them expectant, nervous but hopeful.

These are the Dreamers, the young people covered by the president's executive action that would allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States to work and study and, perhaps some day, gain a path to citizenship. Dreamers are undocumented youth brought here by their parents. They have grown up in our country without papers - without a Social Security card, without a driver's license, without a real future.

The North Bay has thousands of Dreamers. They often excel at our high schools and colleges. Our region has been enriched by their presence, yet for most of their lives they suffered with the fear, anxiety and helplessness that goes along with lacking legal status from the U.S. government.

In June 2012, the Obama administration gave them the first opportunity to obtain any form of legal status. In one stroke of both political genius and humanitarianism, the president created a “deferred status” program for these young immigrants living in the United States. To qualify, applicants had to have come here before their 16th birthday and have arrived before 2007. They must have obtained a high school diploma or be presently studying. Persons with serious criminal records are disqualified.

Almost one million young people across the country have taken advantage of DACA, as the deferred status program is commonly called, obtaining a work permit, a right to stay temporarily and the dream of permanent legal status here.

But the program's future is uncertain. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked on the constitutionality of the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program, the expansion of DACA contained in Obama's November 2014 order. As a result, that order will not take effect during Obama's term.

If DAPA is later struck down as unconstitutional, DACA could easily be challenged next. Also, the end could come with the November election. Donald Trump has said he would eliminate the program.

This is one of the most profound issues at stake in the next 12 months. Hundreds of thousands of young, integrated members of our society suddenly subject to deportation. They have voluntarily come forward and given the federal government all their identifying information. Will they now return to a life in the shadows, fearing a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent at every knock on the door, or deportation every time a policeman pulls over their car? Will we allow our government to arrest young people such as Victor Escobar and deport them to a country they barely know?

Our country is better than that. We need to have the wisdom and humanity to give these young people a future in this country. Whatever the election results this fall, we must save DACA.

Christopher Kerosky is a member of the Sonoma County Human Rights Commission. He is an attorney who practices law in Santa Rosa.