Leaders in Delaware’s Latin American community say they hope the Supreme Court upholds DACA when it reviews the program next year.
The court announced Friday it will hear arguments in the case prompted by the Trump administration’s move to shut down that program shielding about 800,000 young, undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Maria Matos is President and CEO of Delaware’s Latin American Community Center. She says it’s scary to think the program might be discontinued.
“Some of them have been in this country, have married, have [been] educated in this country, are working and their children are US citizens," said Matos. "So what’s going to happen? Do they have to leave their children behind when DACA is no longer and they are removed?”
The Service Employees International Union 32BJ for Pennsylvania and Delaware is also speaking up on the issue. In a statement, its Vice President Gabe Morgan called the review unnecessary and said it will, “increase the worry and uncertainty suffered by hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients.”
Both Morgan and Matos showed support of this week’s Supreme Court decision to not add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
President Trump has been pushing to reinstate the question to this decade’s head count, but the high court ruled Thursday the administration must come up with a better explanation for why it wants to add the question.
“We always felt that this question, this citizenship question, was untested and unnecessary,” said Matos. “I think we commend the Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the census constitutional mandate that every single person in the United States be counted—not just citizens, every single person.”
Morgan said in a statement the question would lead to an undercount in immigrant communities regardless of the respondent’s status.
