DENVER (KDVR) – An imminent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program could force undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children to leave the U.S. The uncertainty is piled onto the unknowns brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Denver Public Schools teacher Maria Morales said she’s worried as a DACA recipient herself, but she’s also worried about her students whose parents are also so-called “Dreamers.”
“We don’t know what’s going to happen and we are living day-by-day,” said Morales.
Morales – along with close to 700,000 DACA recipients, according to numbers released by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2018 – could have an answer next month about her future from the Supreme Court.
“I cannot imagine myself leaving the classroom and leaving my students behind,” said Morales.
The Obama-era program gives undocumented immigrants illegally brought to the U.S. by their parents permission to work, go to school and protection against deportation.
In 2017, President Donald Trump ordered DACA be passed out, arguing former President Barack Obama did not have the legal authority to create such a program.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments over the case in November 2019.
A decision could be announced as early as the first week in June.
Trump last tweeted about DACA in November 2019, saying:
“Many of the people in DACA, no longer very young, are far from ‘angels.’ Some are very tough, hardened criminals. President Obama said he had no legal right to sign order, but would anyway. If Supreme Court remedies with overturn, a deal will be made with Dems for them to stay!”
Meanwhile, Morales is afraid of what could happen to her and the community around her.
“I don’t know if my community is equipped for that sort of family separation,” she added.
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