Bay Area 'Dreamers' Celebrate Supreme Court Decision On DACA
SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) -- The Supreme Court's ruling on DACA Thursday morning was a victory for hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients across the Bay Area and the nation who are known as "Dreamers."
The court rejected the Trump Administration's efforts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which allows undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children, to stay without fear of deportation.
"This is a great time of celebration, and it gives us a glimpse of hope,"
said Luis Fernando Suarez Quintero, a Santa Clara County employee and DACA recipient.
The court ruled 5 to 4 to uphold the Obama-era policy which affects about 650,000 mostly young people who arrived in the U.S. as children without documentation.
The court said the administration failed to give adequate legal cause to end the policy.
"Yet again, yet another example of unlawful, illegal action by the Trump administration. Yet again, did they overreach," said James Williams, the Santa Clara County Counsel who sued the Trump Administration on behalf of county employees who are also DACA recipients.
One constitutional scholar said the ruling allows for another challenge, but keeps DACA alive until then.
"What it doesn't do, it does not stop the administration from going back and rescinding it, but giving a better reason for rescinding it," said Santa Clara University Law Professor Deep Gulasekaram.
DACA recipients say they can live without fear, but are still looking
for changes to immigration policy that gives them a path to citizenship.
"DACA is great. It's allowing us to work and have some of the basic rights
that U.S. citizens have. But it's very obvious that a lot of work needs to be done for the immigrant population and DACA recipients," said Eva Martinez Garcia, a DACA Recipient who's parents brought her to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 7 years old.
