"Trump’s victory has meant emotional whiplash for many across America, but few have as much at stake as the country’s estimated eleven million undocumented immigrants. From the very first day of his campaign, Trump had talked about his plan to “build a great, great wall” at the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out “rapists” and “people that have lots of problems,” and during a “60 Minutes” interview that aired on Sunday Trump vowed to waste no time deporting as many as three million people upon his Inauguration, starting with “people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers.” Following those deportations, the President-elect said, he’d focus on border security, and then assess which immigrants are “terrific people” and which deserve the boot—categories that, for Trump, may not be mutually exclusive.
That Fatima belongs in the “terrific” camp makes her, paradoxically, more vulnerable. She’s one of the Obama Administration’s “Dreamers”—the seven hundred thousand-plus undocumented youth who benefited from a program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or daca, which offered short-term protection from deportation, as well as the right to work. At a press conference on Monday, President Obama, who said that he would urge Trump to maintain the daca program, noted, “These are kids who were brought here by their parents. They did nothing wrong. They’ve gone to school. They have pledged allegiance to the flag. Some have enrolled in the military.… By definition, if they are part of this program, they are solid, wonderful young people of good character.” Yet to access daca’s safe haven, young people like Fatima had to turn over information to the government—their names, birth dates, addresses. Trump has railed against the executive action that gave young people this reprieve, and one early lesson of his victory now hovers over them: what executive authority gives, executive authority can take away."
Undocumented in a Red State and Asking, “What Now?” - The New Yorker
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