Colleges must prepare for possible post-DACA world (opinion)

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

57% : Immigration advocates call on Congress to pass permanent protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients and create a pathway to citizenship at a June 15 rally in Washington, D.C., marking the 10th anniversary of DACA.
52% : It is imperative for Congress to build on DACA to pass legislation that would provide permanent legal status for DACA recipients and other Dreamers.
52% : This legislative fix has long been needed, but given the precarious legal future of DACA, the time to finally deliver is now.
51% : Due to both the precarious legal future of DACA and the success of the program over its decade-long history, we need immediate, bipartisan congressional action to pass some form of Dream legislation protecting undocumented people who were brought to the U.S. as children and giving them a path to citizenship.
51% : While there are substantive improvements to DACA and protections for undocumented students and others that the Presidents' Alliance is urging the Biden administration to make, we must also press Congress to act.
48% : Today, in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a panel of federal judges will hear arguments in a case brought by Texas challenging the legality of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides certain immigrants who were brought to the U.S. without documentation as children protection against deportation and the opportunity to work legally.
48% : And, unlike in 2020, the current Supreme Court is unlikely to uphold DACA -- or at least not in its current form.
45% : The hearing comes just weeks after the 10th anniversary of the establishment of DACA on June 15, when hundreds of DACA recipients and undocumented students -- together with college and university presidents and chancellors, business leaders, and immigration advocates -- joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers, White House officials and agency leaders in Washington, D.C., to celebrate DACA as one of the most successful immigration initiatives in modern history, while also sounding the alarm about its tenuous future.
43% : Already, more than half of the 427,000 undocumented students estimated to be enrolled in higher education do not have the protections and work permits afforded by DACA.
43% : A final, forthcoming DACA rule from this administration is unlikely to address the concerns of undocumented students who are not currently eligible for DACA or provide greater protection to DACA recipients.
41% : Legal experts anticipate that the Fifth Circuit judges will likely rule the DACA program unlawful, as they did in a 2015 case challenging the now-defunct Deferred Action for Parents program and then-proposed expansion of DACA.
41% : Three-quarters of undocumented students entering college are not even eligible for DACA: nearly 100,000 undocumented students graduate high school each year, but only one-quarter are estimated to be eligible for DACA, primarily due to the arrival date eligibility criteria of the program, which require applicants to have entered the U.S. more than 15 years ago.
41% : There are three steps that campuses can take now to prepare for a post-DACA world -- and support undocumented students who already don't have DACA and the work authorization that comes with it.
39% : Finally, administrators should take some time to review the steps they plan to take if the Fifth Circuit issues a negative decision on DACA, which could come any time this summer or later.

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