Young immigrants across the country were elated after the Supreme Court’s favorable ruling Thursday for DACA, the program that temporarily shields about 650,000 undocumented people from deportation. But Maria Garcia is not cheering—at least not yet.
Garcia, who is 17 and just finished high school in Tempe, Arizona, has everything needed to be eligible for DACA. She was 4 years old when her Mexican parents sent her across the border with a smuggler—“some random lady,” as she remembers it. She has never been in legal trouble and graduated with a 4.0 grade point average. She is two years older than the program’s lower age limit of 15.
Yet Garcia has not been able to apply for DACA. After President Trump’s decision to cancel the program in 2017, and the court fights that followed, immigrants who already had two-year permits under DACA have been allowed to renew them. But no new applications were accepted.
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