It’s time to give undocumented DREAMers the certainty of American citizenship | Opinion

Legislation supporting DREAMers is having its day in Washington — again — with the bipartisan Dream Act introduced in the U.S. Senate and the American Dream and Promise Act facing a mid-March vote in the House.

If that all sounds familiar, you’re right.

Ten years ago, in December 2010, I watched and cried from the Senate gallery as DREAMers came a few votes short of seeing the DREAM Act pass in that chamber, after it had already passed in the House of Representatives.

I had the honor of helping draw awareness to DREAMers, the name for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, as one of three young immigrants who marched from Miami to Washington as part of the Trail of Dreams. Yet despite 55 votes and the support of the public, the DREAM Act could not overcome a filibuster.

Despite important breakthroughs over the past decade, DREAMers still are not able to plan their futures in the United States with full confidence. But now we are in a different moment. It’s time for Congress to deliver a legislative fix for DREAMers, quickly, and to build on that momentum to push for broader reforms. And Florida’s elected representatives — of both parties — should be part of the overdue solution.

DREAMers’ futures in America have been under recent threat, as the Trump administration sought to end the popular Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has provided temporary and renewable deportation protections and work permits to more than 800,000 DREAMers since 2012.

Led by the testimonials of DREAMers themselves, litigators won victories that kept DACA in place under an administration intent on ending the program. It’s a remarkable success, one few would have predicted at the start of Donald Trump’s presidency. Now, the Biden administration has fully restored DACA.

Yet, for all the good news, a legal challenge from Texas and several other state attorneys general again threatens its future. DREAMers await a ruling from Judge Andrew Hanen, after a late December hearing on the case. Regardless of the end ruling, the legal challenge itself underscores that DACA does not provide the certainty and permanence that DREAMers — and America — need.

It’s also a reminder that while Biden’s restoration of DACA is important, his pledge to pursue a permanent legislative fix for DREAMers and the broader undocumented population would be more consequential. We need to build on DACA’s temporary protections and replace it with legislation that will permanently bestow the full rights and responsibilities of citizenship and certainty for DREAMers. Even as we remain a politically divided country, polling finds overwhelming support across party lines for DREAMers’ citizenship.

My own story helps illustrate why permanent status matters. It took 25 years to regularize my immigration status, after my husband became a citizen and petitioned for my green card. Before this, I lived the same anxious reality that immigrant youth with DACA, Temporary Protected Status and no immigration status are living today, knowing that my future in this country was uncertain. However, I always knew in my heart that, one day, this nation would give me a chance. Today, I am a proud homeowner and taxpayer in Florida and feel like I am living the American Dream.

The legislative attention to DREAMers arrives at a moment when more sweeping immigration reforms are also being proposed. So why focus on DREAMers? Delivering quickly on behalf of DREAMers and TPS holders will build momentum for broader immigration reforms that should also include farmworkers, DREAMers’ parents, the essential workers that have kept us safe and the rest of the long-settled undocumented population in this country.

It’s time to finally deliver legislation that makes DREAMers full citizens, whose futures are no longer subject to the whims of individual judges. The United States will only be made stronger by settling this issue once and for all.

Gaby Pacheco is director of advocacy, communications and development of TheDream.US, the nation’s largest provider of college scholarships for immigrant youth.

This story was originally published March 10, 2021 at 8:25 PM.