'Dangerous' moment as Trump's DHS ignores DACA protections, advocates say
Emily Bregel
Arizona Daily Star
Updated
Press Sec. Leavitt addresses a reported 500% increase in violence against ICE agents and law enforcement across the country during a White House press briefing.
Immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children are the latest target of the Trump administration's mass-deportation campaign, and the future of the Obama-era program that has protected hundreds of thousands from removal — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA — is increasingly in peril, advocates say.
One third of people held in Alligator Alcatraz have never committed any crimes and have no criminal record. ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan told CBS News, ‘No one is there by accident,’ claiming they had ‘committed a crime against the United States by entering this country illegally.’ As a reminder, that is a civil offense, not a criminal one. So why are people like Edgar, a DACA recipient with protections against deportation as affirmed by a federal judge earlier this year, being detained? Because Trump’s immigration policy isn’t about ‘keeping criminals out’ — it’s about racism, prejudice, and filling the prison system with free labor.
Yaneth, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals applicant, sits outside of El Pueblo Senior Center in Tucson on Aug. 20. Yaneth, who asked to be identified only by her middle name, applied to DACA in 2021 but soon afterwards, the DACA program stopped processing applications after a Texas judge ruled the program unlawful. The ruling maintained protections for existing DACA recipients but halted new applications. Yaneth said she's lived with fear all her life, since her parents brought her to the U.S. from Hermosillo, Sonora when she was 3, but it's heightened lately under President Donald Trump's administration.
Yaneth, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals applicant, sits outside of El Pueblo Senior Center in Tucson on Aug. 20. Yaneth, who asked to be identified only by her middle name, applied to DACA in 2021 but soon afterwards, the DACA program stopped processing applications after a Texas judge ruled the program unlawful. The ruling maintained protections for existing DACA recipients but halted new applications. Yaneth said she's lived with fear all her life, since her parents brought her to the U.S. from Hermosillo, Sonora when she was 3, but it's heightened lately under President Donald Trump's administration.
