Protecting the Right to Liberty and Due Process for Dreamers President Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program upended the lives of some 700,000 Dreamers – young undocumented people who were brought to this country as children. In September 2017, thousands of DACA recipients learned they only had weeks to renew their two-year work permits one final time before the program would end. In an effort to help those eligible for renewal, Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project sprang into action, holding a series of DACA Renewal Clinics. Our goal was to serve 80 Dreamers. Because of the extraordinary efforts of our staff and volunteers, however, we were able Plaintiff Jirayut (“New”) Latthivongskorn is a DACA recipient pursuing both a medical degree from UC San Francisco and a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University.
to help 200 young people in the short time before the deadline set by the President! Thanks to a private donor and a volunteer’s crowdfunding efforts, we were also able to cover the $495 filing fee for all participants.
The case is now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and has the potential to block the Trump Administration from ending the DACA program. However, more needed to be done. The federal government had made extensive promises about the DACA program to entice people to sign up and provide sensitive personal information. It had advertised that the program would provide opportunities and safe harbor for participants. DACA recipients shared with us the life-altering decisions they made based on the government’s promises. One opened a law office. Another
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