Trump ends DACA: All you need to know about it and how Indians are impacted

Move likely to impact 800,000 undocumented workers, including more than 20,000 Indian-Americans

 

With President Donald Trump’s reversal of an Obama-era executive order known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), worst fears of young immigrants seem to be coming true.
The historic move is likely to impact 800,000 undocumented workers, including more than 20,000 Indian-Americans who trusted the US government with their fingerprints and other personal information when they applied for DACA.

Most of the immigrants protected by DACA, dubbed 'Dreamers', came from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

What is DACA?

DACA The DACA programme granted the undocumented youth temporary reprieve from deportation and the ability to legally apply for a job or get admission to educational institutions.
The programme grants them a two-year reprieve that can be extended by issuing them identity papers like driver’s licences, work permit and a social security number.

However, DACA does not provide beneficiaries legal residency in US.

How could one enrol under the programme?

An immigrant was required to be at 15 years of age when applying for DACA. They were to submit proof that they were brought to the US before they turned 16 and were under 31 when the programme was launched.

The application cost was nearly $500 and permits needed to be renewed every two years. The application and renewal process took several weeks.

What about Indians living in US?

Around 20,000 people from India who arrived in the US illegally as children are fearing deportation, South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) said.

"Over 27,000 Asian-Americans, including 5,500 Indians and Pakistanis, have already received DACA. An additional estimated 17,000 individuals from India and 6,000 from Pakistan are eligible for DACA, placing India among the top ten countries for DACA eligibility," SAALT said.

With the termination of DACA, these individuals could face deportation at the discretion of the administration....read more

Trump ends 'Dreamer' immigration programme, 800,000 face unsure future

The action was announced not by Trump but by Jeff Sessions

 

President Donald Trump on Tuesday scrapped an Obama-era programme that protects from deportation immigrants brought illegally into the United States as children, delaying implementation until March and giving a gridlocked Congress six months to decide the fate of almost 800,000 young people.

As the so-called Dreamers who have benefited from the five-year-old programme were plunged into uncertainty, business and religious leaders, mayors, governors, Democratic lawmakers, unions, civil liberties advocates and former Democratic President Barack Obama all condemned Trump’s move.

The action was announced not by Trump but by Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, who called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme an unconstitutional overreach by Obama. There will be an “orderly, lawful wind-down,” Sessions said.

Trump later issued a written statement saying that “I do not favour punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognise that we are (a) nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws.”

He denounced Obama’s programme as an “amnesty-first approach” toward illegal immigrants and pressed his nationalist “America First” message, saying that despite concerns voiced by his critics about the fate of the Dreamers, “Above all else, we must remember that young Americans have dreams too.”

On Tuesday evening, the Republican president tweeted that lawmakers now had six months to “legalize DACA” and that if they did not, he would “revisit this issue!”

Obama issued his own statement calling Trump’s action a political decision, defending DACA’s legality and urging Congress to protect Dreamers....(Read More)

Gauri Lankesh: A firebrand journalist vocal on secularism and Dalit rights

Best quality in Gauri was one could always argue with her, dispute her and tell her she was wrong

 

“Be careful about what you post on social media. We live in dangerous times,” I told Gauri Lankesh last week. She replied saying “We can’t be so dead. It is human to express and react. What we feel impulsively is usually our most honest response.”

On Tuesday night, she was shot and killed in cold blood. The killing was not impulsive. It was well thought and carefully planned, like the murders in Maharashtra and Karnataka of the rationalists and thinkers Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi that she had herself condemned and protested.

I grew up in a family of writers. My father, K. Marulasiddappa, and P Lankesh, Gauri’s father, were colleagues and close friends. Lankesh was an English lecturer. My father taught Kannada.
We lived in the same neighbourhood. My mother often left me in the care of the Lankesh household. Whenever I argued with Gauri, she used to joke saying “Magane (child), I used to babysit you before you learned how to speak.”

But the best quality in Gauri was that one could always argue with her, dispute her and tell her she was wrong. And no matter how fierce our arguments, she respected our right to say what we did. We were close friends because we could disagree. It was a quality that she inherited from her father...read more

20,000 Indian immigrants in US fear deportation as Trump repeals DACA

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions yesterday announced the rescinding of the DACA

 

Thousands of people from India, who arrived in the US illegally as children, are fearing deportation after President Donald Trump's decision to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) programme, a South Asian Advocacy group has said.

The number of such people from India, could be more than 20,000, according to an estimate carried out by South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT).

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions yesterday announced the rescinding of the Deferred Action for Children Arrival (DACA), an Obama-era amnesty programme that granted work permits to immigrants who arrived in the country illegally as children.

The announcement, which was anticipated for the past few days, was greeted with protests from across the country.

"Over 27,000 Asian Americans, including 5,500 Indians and Pakistanis, have already received DACA. An additional estimated 17,000 individuals from India and 6,000 Pakistan respectively are eligible for DACA, placing India in the top ten countries for DACA eligibility," SAALT said.

With the termination of DACA, these individuals could face deportation at the discretion of the administration, it said.(economy news)

"The President's decision to terminate DACA puts 800,000 individuals at risk of deportation from the only country they've ever called home. Ending DACA is the latest evidence of this administration's utter lack of commitment to our nation's founding values of equality and fairness," Suman Raghunathan, executive director of SAALT, said.

"Our current patchwork of immigration policies and programs is broken, and we demand the Congress does its job to craft a commonsense immigration process that creates a road- map to citizenship for aspiring new Americans.

"This is the only way to align our immigration laws with the values Americans hold dear," she said.

In a statement, South Asian Bar Association (SABA) president Rishi Bagga said "DREAMERS" were brought to the US by their parents in hopes of a better life.

"As children, they did not choose to break the law. Most of these young men and women have never returned to the countries of their birth, and many do not even speak the language of their native countries. Rescinding DACA effectually takes away these young people's right to live in the only country they have ever known,"Bagga said....(Read More)