Errors on immigration forms or an old traffic violation can be enough for young people protected by DACA, who came to the United States as children and have built their lives there, to end up facing deportation proceedings despite having complied with US immigration laws.
“I am very afraid, I don’t know what will happen to my future, I have complied with the law, with everything they asked of me and yet now I am in danger of being deported and sent back to a country that I left with my parents when I was 18 months old,” Roberto Navarro Valenzuela told EFE.
The Mexican immigrant, 24 years old and a space mechanics student at the University of Arizona, in Tucson, says that last May he received “the worst” news of his life: Immigration rejected his request to regularize his immigration status and obtain legal residency through his marriage to his American wife.
The student also has an application for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program still pending, a program created in 2012 by then-President Barack Obama to temporarily protect young people who arrived in the United States undocumented as children.
But that application, submitted in 2021, was left in legal “limbo” due to a federal court order that stopped the program and prevented new applications from being processed.
“I tried to follow the law, I married my wife for love, we filled out the forms with the hope of ending this nightmare and moving on with our lives,” emphasizes Navarro Valenzuela.
He remembered that his life has not been easy. He could not save the life of his younger sister, who died of cancer, even though he was her bone marrow donor.
“It scares me, right now I don’t have any protection,” she said through tears.
An incorrect signature
The student has an immigration hearing scheduled in September to try to avoid his deportation. So far, the reason they have given him for rejecting his application is that he supposedly signed the change of immigration status form incorrectly.
Now he would have to start the process again, although this does not suspend the deportation order.
He assures that a deportation would completely destroy his life and his dreams, as well as the work of a lifetime of studies and efforts to achieve a better future for him and his family.
Myndy Valencia Sánchez is in a similar situation, who is currently protected by the DACA program, which expires next January.
However, he recently received a letter notifying him that his case was in deportation proceedings due to a traffic violation he committed more than 15 years ago for driving without a license.
“Since then I have not had any violations, with DACA I obtained my license, my driving record is clean, I have not committed any crime and yet now they want to deport me,” said Valencia Sánchez.
The 29-year-old Mexican immigrant arrived in the United States when she was 7 years old and says that it is very difficult for her to think about returning to a country that is completely unknown to her.
«We have complied with the law. When they gave us the opportunity for DACA, we met all the requirements, with criminal background checks, school checks, work checks, we paid taxes, we filled out forms, but it is still not enough,” he said.
“They caught me by surprise, the truth is I didn’t expect it, I’m scared,” he emphasized.
Immigration attorney Maurice Goldman stated that these two cases show the level of “cynicism” with which, in his opinion, President Donald Trump’s Administration is operating.
“The reasons they are using to put a person in deportation proceedings are ridiculous, what we are seeing in the courts is incredible,” he stressed.
The unknown of the figures
Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term, ICE had deported, until May 12, 85 DACA beneficiaries who had no convictions or criminal charges, according to information requested by Democratic congressmen from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Another 658 DACA recipients and applicants had been taken into custody.
However, it is difficult to know the exact dimension of the phenomenon, since these figures disagree with other data provided by the same federal agency.
Organizations such as the American Immigration Council have documented an increase in arrests and deportations of people with DACA, even though many had current status.
