DACA- Home is Here

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Ahead of the November 12 U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments in three consolidated cases regarding President Trump’s unlawful termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, DACA recipients and a broad coalition of immigrants’ rights organizations today launched the Home Is Here campaign to highlight what is at stake for 700,000 DACA recipients, their families (including 256,000 U.S. citizen children), our communities, the economy, and our country if the Court overturns the lower court rulings currently allowing DACA renewals to continue.

“For the past seven years, DACA has been an incredibly successful program, providing temporary protection from deportation and peace of mind to nearly 800,000 young people who have lived in the U.S. for most of their lives. These Dreamers are part of the fabric of our country, but their futures are once again hanging by a thread as DACA heads to the Supreme Court,” said Karen Tumlin, Director and Founder of the Justice Action Center, manager of the Home is Here Campaign, and part of the counsel team for McAleenan v. Batalla Vidal.

“Ending DACA was both immoral and unlawful, as multiple courts across the country have found. We will continue to fight for DACA recipients and their families whose home is here, in the United States,” Tumlin added.

Organizations participating in the campaign include CASA, the Center for American Progress, Community Change/FIRM, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), FWD.us, Justice Action Center, Make the Road New York, NAKASEC, National Immigration Law Center (NILC), and United We Dream (UWD).

The Home Is Here campaign tells the stories of and commits to protect DACA recipients who arrived in the United States as children and their families. Over the past seven years, more than 700,000 immigrant youth have been able to work, attend school, better support their families, and make even greater contributions to our communities and our country because of the temporary protection from deportation granted by the DACA program. If DACA ends, DACA recipients would be added to the list of those targeted in the deportation dragnet and threatened with deportation to a country that they may not remember, and where they may not even speak the language, sparking a new wave of family separation crises nationwide. Their homes are here in the United States.

The campaign will underscore why DACA is legal, constitutional and highly successful through events across the country over the next six weeks, including DACA renewal clinics and other efforts to encourage DACA recipients to renew their protections as soon as possible, digital storytelling, paid advertising, organizing, and rallies at the Supreme Court and in multiple cities across the country on November 12.

On November 12, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in McAleenan v. Batalla Vidal, Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, and Trump v. NAACP. The lower courts in each of these cases ruled that the Trump Administration’s September 2017 termination of the DACA program was unlawful. Nationwide injunctions and other orders in place have allowed DACA renewals to continue since early 2018; however, no new applications have been considered or granted since the attempted termination. A decision from the Supreme Court is expected between January and June 2020.

The Deputy Solicitor General of California Michael Mongan and noted Supreme Court advocate Ted Olson, Solicitor General of the United States under the George W. Bush Administration, will argue on behalf of a number of individual DACA recipients and the other plaintiffs in these cases, including the Regents of the University of California, Microsoft, Princeton University, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Current DACA recipients are encouraged to consult with an attorney as soon as possible to consider their renewal options. More information is available at RenewMyDACA.com. Americans can also contribute to a DACA recipient in need of the $495 renewal fee by visiting GoFundMe.com/DACA.

Key DACA Facts:

• DACA recipients, on average, arrived in the United States at the age of 7, and have lived here for 20 years. More than a third arrived before age 5. They are our classmates, our coworkers, and our friends. Most know no other country as home.
• DACA recipients are parents to nearly 256,000 U.S. citizen children, and nearly every DACA recipient is part of a mixed-status family. Ending DACA would rip apart hundreds of thousands of families.
• DACA recipients contribute significant federal, state, and local tax revenues that help provide important benefits to millions of Americans.
  • DACA recipients and their households pay $5.7 billion in federal taxes and $3.1 billion in state and local taxes annually.
  • DACA recipients boost Social Security and Medicare through payroll taxes.
  • DACA recipients own 59,000 homes and are directly responsible for $613.8 million in annual mortgage payments.
  • DACA recipients pay $2.3 billion in rent to their landlords each year.

Quotes from Participating Organizations