Perchance to DREAM

In Perchance to DREAM, Michael A. Olivas recounts the two-decade effort, still underway, to provide legal status for the estimated 800,000 young adults who were brought to the United States illegally when they were children. These young people are often referred to as “Dreamers,” a name derived from the acronym of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, first proposed in Congress in 2001. The Dream Act aimed to resolve the legal limbo of this generation—considered to be undocumented immigrants who could be deported from the country they grew up in, and, for most, the only country they ever knew. The Dream Act nearly became law in 2010. Even though a majority in both the House and the Senate supported it, the act fell five votes short of overcoming a Senate filibuster. With bleak prospects for a legislative solution, in 2012 President Barack Obama created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), a temporary reprieve from deportation for those who could meet its strict requirements. Daca was designed as a short-term solution, Olivas explains, a bridge to a time when a new Congress might resolve the Dreamers' legal status. Yet Daca would remain in place over the objection of the next presidential administration and through multiple lawsuits, including two heard by the nation's highest court. In the second of these, a divided Supreme Court in June 2020 left Daca in place for the time being but resolved few questions about presidential power. The resulting stalemate meant that the temporary reprieve instituted by President Obama remained just that—temporary, subject to the policy of each succeeding presidential administration

Administration (probate law · Deportation · Dream · Immigration · Immigration law · Legislature · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Presidential system · Stalemate · Supreme court · Law · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology