DACA recipients, lawmakers, advocates call for permanent protections for Dreamers

María G. Ortiz-Briones, The Sacramento Bee on Jun 15, 2025

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Amid escalating immigration raids and enforcement actions across the county, lawmakers, immigration advocates and DACA recipients are urging Congress to pass permanent protections for Dreamers and immigrant families at risk of President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

DACA recipients and advocates from the Home is Here campaign are bringing attention to the threats to DACA’s future and call for the passage of the Dream Act that could provide a pathway to citizenship.

While June 15 marks the 13th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the program faces court challenges and attacks from anti-immigrant politicians. The program has been tied in legal battles since Trump tried to end it during his first term.

“In the Central Valley, DACA isn’t just a policy; it’s a lifeline. Thousands of DACA recipients are the backbone of our agricultural economy, our schools, and our local businesses. They represent the promise of what California stands for: hard work, family, and opportunity,” said Norberto Gonzalez, California State Program director for Poder Latinx.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit dealt a setback to the DACA policy by ruling it unlawful, though U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will continue processing DACA renewals for current recipients. The federal appeals court’s ruling upheld a status quo that has been in place in recent years, with the future of the DACA program remaining uncertain. The ruling left the DACA program on hold for new applicants.

Since 2012, DACA has allowed over 800,000 Dreamers to pursue higher education, build careers, and contribute to the U.S. economy and workforce.

Many Dreamers remain ineligible for DACA due to the legal challenges. Undocumented students who do not have DACA are vulnerable to immigration enforcement, advocates said. Over 70% of the 500,000 undocumented in U.S. colleges and universities are barred from DACA program despite meeting similar requirements.

Advocates said not only does the DACA program have limitations, but current recipients live in limbo, as well. DACA recipients live under the constant possibility of DACA going away.

California has over 160,000 DACA recipients.

“They are still waiting for permanent protection,” said Gonzalez.

Advocates said any effort to limit or end DACA will have consequences for the economy and communities across the country.

“I understand the fear that hundreds of thousands of dreamers have because they feel even more at risk,” said U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat from California, during a recent press conference in Washington, D.C. “Dreamers deserve to not live in a state of fear. They deserve to be protected.”

If DACA policy ended, it could cost the nation nearly $400 billion in the next 10 years, with half a million dreamers having their status ripped away, and separate more than 1 million U.S citizen family members who live in mixed status families, advocates said.

Padilla, a sponsor of the bipartisan American Dream & Promise Act, said Congress needs to act and “pass the Dream Act to provide permanent protections for Dreamers who contribute so much to our country and economy, finally giving them the peace of mind they deserve.”

DACA, created in 2012 by former President Barack Obama through an executive order, protects undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children from deportation and provides them with work authorization and Social Security numbers.

In November 2014, Obama announced expansions to the program, including extending it to more undocumented immigrants and lengthening the deferral period. Trump rescinded DACA in 2017.

“The thing that DACA has shown all of us is that giving people the ability to work and live legally is the right step. It needs to step in the right direction, not just for DACA recipients, and not just for dreamers, but for everyone here,” said Todd Schulte, President of FWD.us. “For DACA to go away the economic consequences would be devastating.”

In reference to immigration raids in California this week, Schulte said “there is no excuse for weaponizing a failed immigration system.”

Diana Pliego, senior campaigns strategist at the National Immigration Law Center and a former DACA recipient said while DACA has done ‘wonderful things” for the community, it is “not enough. It never has been, and it never will be.”

“We need legislation. We need the Dream and Promise Act. And I cannot think of a more urgent time than right now. We have seen our communities under attack in unprecedented ways,” Pliego said, referring to recent ICE raids in Los Angeles.

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