Elvia Díaz

 Posted May 28, 2026

 

 

Some Dreamers have had enough — enough of the broken promises and the uncertainty that comes with living in fear of deportation despite pledging allegiance to this country and the U.S. Constitution since childhood.

 

“DACA has done beautiful things…it has given us a lot of opportunities,” said immigration attorney Salvador Macias. “But I’ve always said DACA is a Band-Aid for a wound that needs stitches.”

 

Now Macias, along with hundreds of thousands of Dreamers who’ve gotten temporary protection under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, finds himself back in limbo.

 

DACA allows eligible immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children to obtain temporary work permits and driver’s licenses. They must renew their DACA every two years.

 

Dreamers are exhausted and afraid

 

But U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under the Trump administration is slow-walking DACA renewals, allowing permits to expire, which means the recipients become deportable. Processing times that once took about 15 days now stretch to 120 days or longer.

 

“This is not a bureaucratic inconvenience,” Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton said at a May 11 press conference after meeting with Macias, other Dreamers and immigration attorneys.

 

“It means someone can and will lose their job authorization, through no fault of their own,” Stanton said. “It means employers will lose trusted workers, and it means students and young professionals suddenly do not know whether they can continue building their futures right here in Phoenix, Arizona. That’s not acceptable to me.”

 

Stanton is right to be furious. He and dozens of fellow Democrats on April 9 sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding answers about the delays.

 

The response so far? Crickets. Zilch.

 

Were they expecting an answer, though? Does anyone really expect accountability from the same Trump administration that’s targeting every undocumented immigration for deportation?

 

Things are getting worse for Dreamers. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Board of Immigration Appeals recently made it easier to deport them, adding to the fear already gripping them.

 

Plus, USCIS this month added several new factors to consider when reviewing DACA that echoes the language in Texas v. United States (the case that has seen lots of litigation to end the DACA program).

 

New factors include urgent medical needs, financial means to support himself or herself and, most concerning and ambiguous, whether the applicant “has endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise espoused anti-American views or the views of a terrorist organization or group.”

 

Translation: Uncle Sam will be checking the applicants’ social media content for anything Trump and his MAGA henchmen deem anti-American. Those applicants could face denial and deportation simply for not passing a subjective loyalty test based on their Instagram and TikTok pages.

 

Stanton deserves credit for sounding the alarm. Also, Sen. Mark Kelly is pushing for bipartisan legislation called the Dignity Act to create a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and other law-abiding migrants.

 

That’s great, but many immigrants aren’t holding their breath because they’ve heard these promises before, especially during election cycles when both Democrats and Republicans need to lure Latinos to the polls only to forget about them once votes are counted.

 

Dreamers have heard promises about citizenship pathways and comprehensive immigration reform only to watch Congress fail repeatedly to deliver.

 

Realistically, Democrats have little power now. Republicans control both chambers of Congress. Even if Democrats win either the House or Senate or both this November, Trump will still be in the White House for another two years.

 

Dreamers are exhausted and afraid

 

I sympathize with Macias’ anger and disappointment. I sympathize with his fear and frustration that as an immigration attorney he can’t help his own immigration predicament because there’s no legal pathway for him.

 

He’s right to call on the public, the media and elected officials to finally rip off the Band-Aid that’s DACA.

 

Poll after poll has shown that a majority of Americans support the Dreamers. Republicans, Democrats and independents alike generally agree that immigrants brought here as children should have a chance to stay legally.

 

So, why doesn’t Congress do it?

 

Congress has repeatedly looked away while young people who grew up in this country, build careers and pay billions of dollars in taxes annually to Arizona and the nation’s coffers.

 

What can Dreamers realistically expect under another Trump administration? Nothing.

 

Nothing unless there’s public outrage. They need the American public to raise hell, to pressure both Republicans and Democrats to stop treating them like political props and finally legalize them.

 

Voters should remember these Dreamers when candidates come asking for their vote this year. Don’t vote for anyone who wants to deport these educated migrants who’re greatly contributing to the U.S. economy.

 

After all, as Macias puts it, Dreamers “learned the same pledge of allegiance at the same time you did and love this country the way you do.”

 

 

Elvia Díaz is the former editorial page editor and longtime columnist at The Arizona Republic — and the first Latina to lead the paper’s opinion pages. This commentary republished from Arizona Mirror  under a Creative Commons license.