Trump To DACA Recipients: Get Out
After claiming that he'd even reach out to Democrats to "work something out" for Dreamers, Trump is now telling hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who grew up here to self-deport.
Sadly, no real surprise here. Donald Trump and his anti-immigrant purge crew have made it clear to DACA recipients: get out. Get lost. Go home.
Of course, following his reelection to the White House last November, he claimed to “Meet The Press” host Kristen Welker that he wanted to “work something out” for the hundreds of thousands of young immigrants protected by the popular and successful program, going so far as to make the bold claim that he would reach out to Democratic lawmakers to come up with legislative relief.
“In many cases, they become successful. They have great jobs. In some cases, they have small businesses, some cases they might have large businesses. And we're going to have to do something with them,” Trump stated at the time. “You want them to be able to stay. That's what you're saying,” Welker clarified. “I do,” Trump responded. “I want to be able to work something out.”
But as many of us suspected at the time, the claim that he would “work something out” for DACA recipients has turned out to be worth about as much as a degree from Trump University. Instead of working toward the pathway to citizenship that’s favored by an overwhelming majority of the American public, the Trump administration has been abducting and detaining Dreamers who are supposed to be protected under the policy.
These unjust arrests have been brazen. Erick Hernandez, a DACA recipient and rideshare driver in Southern California, faces deportation after simply taking a wrong turn while driving a customer.
NBC News reported late last month that the 34-year-old was driving passengers to San Ysidro – “known as the ‘most southern community in California’ because it is so close to the Mexican border,” the report said – when he missed his exit and ended up in Tijuana. “Because DACA recipients are not allowed to leave the country without prior approval, federal immigration authorities took Hernandez into custody when he tried to return to the U.S.” He’s called the U.S. his home for two decades.
And, this isn’t an outlier, but rather a "growing pattern,” as United We Dream’s Anabel Mendoza told NBC News.
Javier Diaz Santana, a 32-year-old DACA recipient who is deaf and mute, was detained for nearly a month following a chaotic raid that targeted his worksite. Diaz was arriving at his car wash job (are we all feeling safer, folks?) when he saw masked agents descending on the location like it was a warzone and “shouting commands that he could not hear or understand,” NBC Los Angeles reported.
But when he tried to use his phone in order to communicate with them, they snatched it away. And when he asked to be uncuffed so he could use his hands to try to communicate with them, they inexplicably refused.
“An officer showed Diaz his phone, where he had typed a question: What country are you from? Diaz couldn’t answer,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “I can’t sign with my hands cuffed,” Diaz later recalled. “They took my power.” He was then shipped off to a detention facility in Texas as mass deportation officials sought to purge him to a country he hadn’t called home since he was just five.
Diaz spent nearly a month there before an immigration judge granted him release on bond. He would later share that the court interpreter who was explaining the hearing to him “was the first time in weeks someone communicated with him using sign language,” the LA Times reported.
To others afraid of also being ensnared by the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda that’s also targeted day laborers, ice cream vendors, landscapers, and many others simply trying to support themselves and their families, it offered this callous “advice”: get out.
“Illegal aliens can take control of their departure with the CBP Home App,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Truthout when questioned on the slew of arrests targeting Dreamers. “The United States is offering illegal aliens $1,000 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live [the] American dream.”
And, the reprehensible message was no misspeak. “McLaughlin has provided other news outlets with identical statements,” Truthout noted.
None of that should be surprising. During his first term, Trump tried to end DACA, including taking his fight all the way to the Supreme Court, where he lost in a 5-4 ruling. Since then, GOP state attorneys general have picked up the baton and sought to end the program through their handpicked judge. Project 2025, which drives the Trump administration agenda, also called for the elimination of the program. While current applicants can renew their protections for now, first-time applicants remain blocked from accessing the program due to the continued litigation (see the latest on the 5th Circuit court case here).
For officials like mass deportation architect-in-chief Stephen Miller, the attacks on DACA have been all about punishing the more than 835,000 people who have thrived under the program to date. But when Miller punishes DACA recipients, he’s punishing American communities. DACA recipients live in every single state in the nation. They’re teachers, first responders, and business owners, caregivers and parents of American citizens. They boost the economy and help sustain critical programs essential to the everyday lives of millions of Americans, such as Social Security and Medicare.
Attacking them isn’t just wrong, it’s self-defeating.
DACA recipients like Diaz have done everything they’re supposed to do by applying for DACA. They’re staying out of trouble and passing their background checks (makes you wonder how certain others would fare under similar scrutiny). They’re paying their fees and submitting their biometrics. They’re keeping their end of the bargain. It’s instead the Trump administration that’s broken the promise of DACA and the promise to pass legislative relief (but by all means, please prove us wrong).
“I have DACA. I’ve already applied. I went through the steps. I thought everything was fine,” Diaz continued to NBC Los Angeles. “I was doing everything, following everything.”
“The administration has made it abundantly clear that they are going after everyone, including detaining and deporting Dreamers with and without DACA,” said Mario Carrillo, Campaigns Director for America’s Voice. “With dreams turning into nightmares, it’s little wonder that the public is rejecting mass deportation and calling for policies that would offer Dreamers citizenship in the country they’ve long called home.”