Just over a month into his second term, President Donald Trump has laid much of the groundwork necessary to fulfill his promise of “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
A post on Feb. 20 on X from the Department of Homeland Security details some of those steps. Mr. Trump declared a national emergency on the southern border, he restarted construction of the border wall and he signed the Laken Riley Act, which requires the detention of undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of criminal offenses.
The administration even began using Guantanamo Bay to facilitate deportations and negotiated new deals with some Latin American countries that previously had refused to accept deportees. D.H.S. Secretary Kristi Noem is reporting a significant drop in the number of unauthorized border crossings since Mr. Trump came into office.
But so far, the administration has remained silent on the fate of undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. They have become known as “Dreamers,” a reference to the Dream Act (the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), which first tried to create a path to citizenship for this group in 2001.
Many, but far from all, Dreamers include recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program instituted by President Barack Obama in 2012 that protects an estimated 690,000 Dreamers from deportation. The program also gives DACA beneficiaries authorization to work.
“I’ve always relied on DACA,” said Alma, a DACA recipient and Jesuit university graduate who asked that her last name not be used. She worries about becoming a target if White House policy on Dreamers should turn. “It has helped me be able to have a [driver’s] license…live without fear and [to] work.”
But Alma is also frustrated by the continuing uncertainty about her future in the United States and that every two years she has to spend more than $500 in renewal fees to remain enrolled in the program. She first received DACA when she was 15 and describes her legal status as still in a kind of limbo.
“DACA recipients have always been waiting for a pathway to citizenship,” Alma told America. “But I think about all these other students who are in a similar situation, but can’t live in the light. It has given me a way to not live in the shadows.”
Over the years, Americans expressed great compassion for Dreamers. In 2018, a CBS poll found 87 percent of respondents believed Dreamers should be allowed to stay in the United States. But as the Trump administration begins its focus on immigration policy, is public sentiment shifting? A recent NPR/Ipsos poll found that fewer than half of Americans supported allowing Dreamers to stay in the country.
The diminishing support, along with the Trump administration’s intense focus on immigration, has left DACA recipients uncertain about their future.
“DACA was supposed to be like a Band-Aid,” said Jorge Palacios, the migration coordinator for youth engagement at the Ignatian Solidarity Network. “I don’t think anyone expected DACA to be a serious, long-term solution.”
In fact, Mr. Palacios noted, Dreamers can no longer apply for DACA. D.H.S. is only processing renewals from current recipients. To receive DACA, applicants had to be in the United States before Jan. 1, 2007. That means most college undergraduates who are Dreamers are not eligible for the protected status.
Mr. Palacios said he did not know a single undergraduate student who is a DACA recipient, even if their arrival into the United States replicated the experience of “official” Dreamers. “If someone’s 18 and a freshman in college, they would have had to be a year old when they came to the United States,” he said.
DACA created a false sense of hope, according to Camila, who also asked that her last name not be used as a precaution. She has been involved with the Ignatian Solidarity Network since her days as an undergraduate student at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Today, without work authorization, recent graduates who are undocumented struggle to find work, she said. New university-led efforts, like fellowships and stipends, have helped some undocumented graduates who do not have work permits.
“The first instinct [among DACA recipients] is fear or worry, and rightfully so, because…a lot of things that are being said [by the Trump administration] are threatening people’s livelihoods,” Camila told America. “But at the same time, we’re also seeing people come together.”
Camila has been a big part of making that happen at Loyola Marymount. Camila, who immigrated from Peru with her family as a child, was a senior at the university when she attended her first Ignatian Family Teach-in for Justice, an annual event organized by the Ignatian Solidarity Network, in Washington. There she learned that many immigrant students did not have adequate support at their colleges.
Yet at L.M.U., she found a great deal of support, including financial aid, connecting with students with a similar immigration status and helpful faculty and staff. Camila served in leadership of a group at her university called Resilience, an immigrant rights student organization.
Her experience at L.M.U., as well as during the Covid-19 pandemic, inspired her to found the UnDocu Network five years ago with the help of the Ignatian Solidarity Network. It is a national network for undocumented young adults that meets monthly “to talk about whatever their needs are, whatever barriers they’ve facing or even just victories they’re having on their campuses or in life.”
The network meets over Zoom. Participants come primarily from Latin American backgrounds, but the group is open to students from other countries, Camila said. Recently, the calls have included workshops on how to find internships, legal workshops to discuss strategies for formalizing their residency status, seminars on mental health resources and help navigating complex emotions surrounding identity.
UnDocu Network also hosts annual summits. Their most recent was in January. Around 50 students and Jesuit university alumni from across the country gathered for the summit, which includes U.S. residents who grew up undocumented, in mixed-status households or in immigrant communities.
“I can just listen to somebody share their experience and for some reason, I feel like I’m [the one] being heard,” said Jonathon Mora of the UnDocu Network, noting the converging stories of people who have been protected under DACA. “We’re not going through this alone and we’re not the only ones fighting for it,” he told America. Last May, Mr. Mora became the first of his family to graduate from college.
Mr. Mora, who is pursuing a legal career, is a U.S. citizen who grew up in an immigrant neighborhood. He said sometimes all it takes to make a difference in another person’s life is ask a question and listen to the answer.
“If we want to be advocates, we need to let the person whom we want to support speak and elevate their voice,” he said.
Mr. Palacios, who grew up in a mixed-status household, said the student-initiated UnDocu Network has connected those directly affected by changes to immigration policy and has helped ground the work of the broader Ignatian Solidarity Network.
With the Trump administration just revving up its immigration policies, “the messaging on our end is fundamentally about what we can do to take care of each other,” he said. “In the midst of all this fear, there is this clear sense of hope that is the driving force behind everything we do.” It is a hope, he said, that comes at an “overwhelmingly adverse” time for migrants.
