DREAMers left confused about fine points of US immigration programme’s end

Days after US President Donald Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, Mayara Pena still has a lot of unanswered questions. One of them is about her cars. In March, she leased a 2009 Honda for her personal use and a brand new 2017 Dodge van for the small construction business she owns. On Tuesday, Pena, who came to the United States from Brazil as a teenager, learned that her authorization to work and protection from deportation under DACA will lapse in 2019, before the car leases are up. At that point, the social security number Pena used on the leases will no longer be valid. Moreover, Massachusetts, where the 29-year-old lives, will soon require proof of legal residency to obtain a driver’s licence, and Pena worries what that will mean for her existing licence – and for her car insurance. In ending the programme, Trump said he wants the Republican-controlled Congress to enact a permanent, nationwide solution to stabilise the lives of so-called Dreamers such as Pena, people brought to the United States illegally as children. But in the past, Republicans and Democrats in the deeply divided legislature have been unable to agree on the issue. The administration has promised an “orderly” end to DACA, but programme participants are finding it hard to get answers to their many questions about what exactly that means. Although the programme is federal, the fate of its nearly 800,000 participants will vary from state to state, with state policies determining whether or not they will be able to continue studying, receive financial aid, or even drive legally. Many states do not yet know themselves what the programme’s end will mean. More than a dozen state attorneys general and the University of California system are suing Trump in an effort to reinstate the programme.

200 questions

On Tuesday night, hours after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the end of DACA, immigration attorney David Leopold held a 45-minute Facebook Live session in which he was overwhelmed by more than 200 questions and comments from people nervous about their futures. Leopold had to explain that many of the questions would require individual legal counselling or just could not be answered yet, as individual states, as well as universities and businesses, have not yet had time to evaluate the situation. Some issues that fall under the federal government will be uniform in each state. Work authorization, for example, will be withdrawn for all. But on some matters, geography will count. At least 18 states, for example, allow for in-state tuition rates for students living in the country illegally and a subset of those - California, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas and Washington - allow undocumented students to receive state financial aid.