The Trump administration said “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, will remain protected for now — a short-term win for educators who had entered the classroom thanks to the new protections and for students worried about deportation and losing a path into the workforce.
Although the ultimate fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA, is unclear, a fact sheet posted by Department of Homeland Security says recipients of the program will “continue to be eligible” for renewal and that “no work permits will be terminated prior to their current expiration dates.”
Nearly 1.5 million people had requested to participate in DACA by the end of 2016, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The decision to keep DACA comes after multiple petitions from schools chiefs and education leaders across the country asking for the protections established during the Obama administration to continue. The program has allowed some undocumented people to become educators, including through Teach for America, which has developed a support program for them. (Read more about that program here.) Some teachers who earned work permits under the program now have a path to citizenship, too.
In Colorado, one of TFA’s “DACAmented” teachers said the program put her in position to help other Hispanic students and families.
“This is the first time in a classroom where I can have a conversation about race and immigration without feeling sick to my stomach,” one student told her.
The decision also comes alongside news that the Trump administration is rescinding another Obama-era program granting citizenship to parents whose children are citizens or residents of the U.S., commonly referred to as DAPA. A 2014 report estimated that up to 3.6 million unauthorized immigrants were eligible for protections from deportation and entry into the workforce under DAPA.
This story was originally posted June 16, 2017, on Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.