PHOENIX (AP) — Reyna Montoya was 10 years venerable when she and her family fled violence in Tijuana and immigrated to the United States illegally. Growing up in Arizona, she feared that even a minor traffic violation could result in her deportation.
It wasn’t until 11 years later, in 2012, that she felt relief when she received a letter confirming that she had been accepted into a fresh program for immigrants who came to the country illegally as children.
“Suddenly all these possibilities opened up,” Montoya said, fighting back tears. The Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program gave her and hundreds of thousands of others a two-year, renewable permit to live and work legally in the United States.
But as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House after an unsuccessful attempt to repeal DACA in his first term, the roughly 535,000 current recipients are again bracing for a whirlwind of uncertainty. Meanwhile, a years-long challenge to DACA could ultimately make it illegal and leave people like Montoya without protection from deportation.
“I have to take very seriously his (Trump’s) words that when they talk about ‘mass deportation,’ that includes people like me,” said Montoya, who runs Aliento, an Arizona-based immigrant rights advocacy group.
Uncertainty is nothing fresh for DACA recipients. As many matured from school age to adulthood, they witnessed a barrage of legal threats to the program.
DACA has not accepted fresh applicants since 2021, when a federal judge ruled it illegal and ordered fresh applications not to be processed, although current recipients could still renew their permits. The Biden administration appealed the ruling and the case is currently pending.
For those who have received and renewed DACA approvals, the benefits have been life-changing. With DACA, Montoya was able to legally work, receive medical and dental care, and obtain a driver’s license for the first time.
Many recipients had hoped that Vice President Kamala Harris would win the presidency and continue to fight for it. But the re-election of Trump, who has repeatedly accused immigrants of fueling violent crime and “poisoning the blood of the United States,” has heightened their fears that DACA could end and they could face deportation.
Out of caution, some are rushing to renew their permits, according to the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, which is providing free legal counsel to support them through the extensive process.
Others are preparing for possible family separation. DACA recipient Pedro Gonzalez-Aboyte, a Phoenix native, said he and his immigrant parents and his two U.S.-born brothers recently discussed the possibility of separation.
Remembering his parents, who immigrated from Mexico, Gonzalez-Aboyte said that even if they couldn’t stay in the country, “as long as the three of you are here and you’re doing well, then that’s what we want.”
“That was a very real conversation that we had,” Gonzalez-Aboyte said.
Trump transition team officials did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
While it’s unclear how Trump might impact DACA this time, he has proposed scaling back other programs that provide fleeting protections for immigrants and is staffing his fresh administration with immigration hardliners including Stephen Miller and Thomas Homan.
During his first term, Trump attempted to repeal DACA. But in 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that his administration had unlawfully ended the program, but did not rule on the program’s legality.
But the fate of DACA will not immediately be left to Trump, if at all.
A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — considered the most conservative appeals court in the country — heard arguments on the legality of DACA in October. The case, originally filed in 2018 by Texas and other Republican-led states, now focuses on a Biden administration rule aimed at preserving and strengthening DACA.
Lawyers for DACA opponents argued that immigrants in the country illegally were a financial burden on states. Meanwhile, the Biden administration and interveners argue that Texas has not demonstrated that the costs it cited were due to policy and therefore lacks standing.
The panel has no deadline to make a decision. Regardless, the ruling will likely be appealed, potentially sending the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell University, said the most likely scenario is that the panel affirms that DACA is illegal and the case goes to the Supreme Court. He doesn’t expect Trump to immediately try to end DACA, but didn’t rule out the possibility.
“I don’t know if they could actually end the program any quicker than the current coalition is running,” he said. “They could still do it, but they have a lot of immigration policy issues on their minds.”
Yale-Loehr said the Biden administration can only offer DACA recipients narrow options at this stage, but it can allow recipients to renew their permits early and process them as quickly as possible.
Greisa Martinez Rosas is a DACA recipient and executive director of United We Dream, a youth-led immigrant advocacy network with more than one million members nationwide. She said the immigration rights movement has grown significantly since Trump’s first term and has been preparing for this moment for years by building “a nimble and responsive infrastructure so we can make changes as threats emerge.”
She said they are calling on Americans to provide sanctuary to immigrants, prepare to ensure people’s physical and psychological safety in the event of mass deportations, plan demonstrations and ask the current administration for support.
“We still have a few months until the Biden administration uses every single tool at its disposal to protect and defend as many people as possible,” Martinez Rosas said at a recent press conference. “We expect them to do that now more than ever.”
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Gabriel Sandoval is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
