The U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 Thursday to uphold the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Two northern Illinois legislators are applauding the decision.
The DACA program gives individuals who came to the United States illegally as children the option to stay. They can request a two-year deferment, which is renewable. There are several conditions that must be met.
State Senator Cristina Castro of Elgin represents Illinois’ 22nd District. She said she is relieved that things turned out the way they did.
“I had, on my political side, a young man who was helping my campaign who was a DACA student who was terrified to see what would happen,” she said.
She said he was worried about deportation but now there is a bit of ease.
State Representative Barbara Hernandez represents Illinois’ 83rd district.
“Today the students have won, the ‘Dreamers’ have won. And we should continue fighting,” Hernandez said. “We should continue fighting for what we deserve in the community.”
The Aurora Democrat said this doesn’t only impact Latinos, as there are others who are undocumented.
She said she is a little nervous because she is not sure if this is over or if President Trump will continue pushing to end the program.
Castro said more work needs to be done.
“Scotus did give the administration a blueprint of how they can dismantle it,” Castro said. “The department could choose not to keep applications open, there are ways that they can start formulating a process to end the program, which I think is wrong.”
Castro said it is imperative that people think about this when they vote in November.
Yvonne Boose is a 2020 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project which is a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms.
