HOUSTON (CN) — Supporters of a policy that has shielded 800,000 immigrants from deportation rallied at the White House and in Austin on Tuesday, as pressure mounts on the Trump administration to rescind the policy or face a lawsuit from Texas.
Tuesday was the five-year anniversary of the day the government began taking applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, under which undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children can be protected from deportation and get federal work permits for renewable two-year terms.
Karla Perez, a board member of the Houston affiliate of Washington-based nonprofit United We Dream, received DACA protection in November 2012.
Perez said in an interview that DACA has allowed her to pursue her dream of becoming an immigration attorney and helping battered women and children. She is set to graduate with a law degree from the University of Houston in May 2018.
She has renewed her DACA status more than once, and it’s set to expire in autumn 2018.
But only if the Trump administration caves to pressure from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and officials from nine other Republican-led states, who sent Trump a letter on June 29, promising to sue the government if Trump does not rescind DACA by Sept. 5 and phase out the program by not renewing the lawful status of so-called Dreamers.
Around 100 DACA supporters rallied at the state Capitol in Austin on Tuesday. Some linked arms and blocked the entrance to Paxton’s office building while chanting, “Paxton has got to go.”
More than 200,000 DACA applications have been approved for Texas residents, second only to Californians. Despite the program’s success stories, Paxton says he believes President Barack Obama established DACA illegally.
Perez disagrees.
“More people have been able to get better jobs and with that the ability to contribute more to our local economies,” she said. “People have been able to buy their first homes and certainly being able to have a driver’s license or state ID opens up more employment possibilities. … By having DACA I know of friends who have been able to support their parents and support their siblings.”
During the presidential election campaign, Trump often appeared with family members of people murdered by undocumented immigrants and promised to deport all the estimated 11 million in the United States, leading DACA supporters to believe he would kill the program.
But he expressed empathy for Dreamers at a press conference early this year.
“We’re going to show great heart. DACA is a very, very difficult subject for me, I will tell you. To me, it’s one of the most difficult subjects I have, because you have these incredible kids, in many cases, not in all cases. In some of the cases they’re having DACA and they’re gang members and they’re drug dealers too,” he said at a White House news conference in February.