in recent times Meet the press interview, President-elect Donald Trump has claimed he’s open to working with Democrats on legislation that would keep Dreamers — undocumented immigrants. who came to the United States as children — in the country. His own track recordHowever, there are doubts about how serious this commitment is.
“I want to be able to do some work,” Trump said during an exchange with NBC News’ Kristen Welker, adding that he wants Dreamers to stay in the United States.
His recent comments stand in stark contrast For his actions as president, however, when he Tried to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programWhich saves some dreamers from deportation. (He also called on Congress to act Protect DACA recipientswhich failed to do so.)
Trump’s 2017 effort to end the program has left many dreamers in legal limbo But the Supreme Court eventually struck it down for procedural failure.
Since then, however, multiple Republican-led states have filed a lawsuit that is also working its way through the courts and similarly seeks to dismantle the program. The case is currently ongoing Before the Fifth Circuit Court of AppealsAnd experts believe it could end up before the Supreme Court as early as next year if it is appealed. Previously, a US District Court judge ruled that former President Barack Obama exceeded his executive authority by creating DACA without Congress — indicating that legislation would likely be necessary to preserve protections going forward.
For more than 20 years, a legislative deal to give Dreamers a path to citizenship has proven elusive, largely because of Republican opposition. To implement a bill protecting Dreamers, Trump would have to pressure his fellow Republicans, who will soon control both the House and Senate, to support it. Short of doing so, his claims to support the group — which he did occasionally during his first term — don’t hold much weight.
The long fight over DACA, briefly explained
Obama first established DACA in 2012 to temporarily protect hundreds of thousands of Dreamers from deportation, give them work authorization and enable access to social benefits like health care. Recipients can renew their DACA status every two years, but the program does not offer a path to citizenship or permanent legal status. Due to a recent court decision, existing DACA recipients are still protected from deportation, but new applicants cannot apply for the program. And because of the terms of the program — which requires applicants to stay in the U.S. until 2007 — many immigrants who recently arrived in the country are not eligible.
Of the estimated 3 million Dreamers in the United States, DACA protects only a fraction — about 535,000 — of them. The program previously included several thousand other recipients, but there are some Obtained legal status through other channelsincluding marriages to US citizens, and others who have left the country or refused to renew Most of these Dreamers, who immigrated as children, are now in their 20s and 30s, and have firmly established their lives in the United States. “We have to do something about the Dreamers because these are people who were brought here at a very young age,” Trump told NBC News over the weekend. “A lot of them are now middle-aged people.”
DACA has long had overwhelming public support — a 2023 Progress poll found 56 percent Voters support it — but Congress has repeatedly failed to pass legislation to enshrine the program in law and establish a path to legal status for Dreamers. The program may have only made this problem more urgent Wounded by the decision of the Supreme Court As soon as next year — and since a judge concluded that executive actions weren’t enough to save it.
A high court decision could put millions of current DACA recipients at risk of deportation and deepen the uncertainty that thousands of other Dreamers are navigating when it comes to work permits and social benefits.
The DREAM Act, which would give conditional legal status to millions of Dreamers, First launched in 2001But the past two decades have seen numerous roadblocks. According to Diana Plego, federal advocacy strategist at the National Immigration Law Center, the bill was one of the last was under serious consideration in 2010When it failed in the Senate by five votes. That year, 36 Republicans and five Democrats voted against the legislation after it had already passed the House, which conservatives derided as a mass “amnesty” program.
Although there have been attempts to revive the immigration deal every congressional term, they have yet to succeed. Partisan divisions over immigration have been a major obstacle: Republicans have generally resisted establishing a new path to citizenship, and Democrats have struggled to get GOP members on board with efforts to bundle the Dream Act with tougher immigration measures.
In 2018, Trump urged senators to squash a bipartisan deal that included funding for his border wall in exchange for the DREAM Act because it lacked sufficient provisions to limit family-based immigration. A possible similar effort to attach punitive policies to the DREAM Act could prove a stumbling block in the new Congress as well: “Will [Trump] Holding hostage again with his long laundry list of horrible anti-immigrant policies? Pliego assumed.
Trump has also sought to blame the lack of legislation on Democrats. And while it’s true that Democrats briefly had the numbers in the Senate to pass a bill during the Obama administration, they haven’t had the same majority since. Immigration legislation needs 60 votes to pass the Senate. And the Democrats had 60 seats A short time in 2009Although some seats were held by relatively conservative senators.
The party, however, lacked 50- and 51-person majorities in recent terms and would need significant Republican support to approve an immigration deal during the Biden administration. As a failed frontier In February, the security proposal indicated, Even for tougher immigration measures they have not garnered this degree of GOP support.
What would take a real fix
For now, it’s too early to tell if Trump is actually committed to protecting Dreamers. “At the end of the day, he has a history of being against DACA recipients,” Pleego said. “He tried to end DACA, and we took him to the Supreme Court.”
He speculated that a Supreme Court decision on the program in 2025 could potentially spur lawmakers to action, since Congress often waits until a policy is in jeopardy to act on it.
Protections for Dreamers are often entwined in the larger immigration fight. Republicans have occasionally signaled openness to them, but only in exchange for anti-immigrant measures — including funding for Trump’s border wall — that Democrats once opposed.
Trump could break the deadlock by pushing for a “clean” Dreamers bill that is not tied to such measures. Democrats, meanwhile, may be more amenable to a package that both protects the Dream and includes tougher security measures as the party has shifted to the right of the border in recent months — but that much remains unknown.
“With Republicans in control of both the House and Senate since January, [the GOP is] It is likely that opposition to helping DACA recipients will continue unless President Trump puts his weight behind any legislation and says no [them] to vote for the bill,” Stephen Yale-Lohr, a professor of immigration law at Cornell Law School, told Vox. In the past, some Republicans, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Lindsey Graham, have supported the DREAM Act, even though majorities in the party voted against it in both the Senate and House.
Yale-Lohr also noted the importance of considering a bill that does not contain “poison pills,” such as money for detention camps, that could undermine Democratic support.
Barring these developments, the law’s potential to address DREAMers still seems out of reach in the new term. And Trump’s alleged support of the group also remains questionable. “He never did anything for the Dreamers,” Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz told NBC News. “He would never do anything for the dreamers. It’s bait, and we don’t have to accept it.”
