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Documented dreamers lose their temporary dependent status when they turn 21 (Archive)
Nearly 250,000 children of legal immigrants, including a significantly large number of Indian-Americans, now face a significant risk of being deported from the U.S. once they turn 21 and “age out.”
These people, called “documented dreamers,” enter the United States with their parents, who usually have temporary work visas. However, they lose their status as temporary dependents as soon as they turn 21 and face deportation.
According to an analysis of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data by the National Foundation for American Policy, more than 1.2 million Indians, including their dependents, have been waiting in the first, second and third categories of employment-based green cards as of November 2 last year.
Who are the documented dreamers?
Minor children who come to the U.S. through the temporary nonimmigrant visa category with their parents are still eligible to obtain permanent resident status through one of their parents if this occurs before they turn 21. However, if they fail to obtain permanent residency before the aforementioned age, these children lose their temporary dependent status and are therefore removed from the green card line – in official terms, they age out, according to the American Immigration Council.
Upon turning 21, children “cease to have” temporary legal status derived from their parents’ visas and face possible deportation unless they can obtain a different temporary or permanent status on their own.
For example, the popular H-1B visa, one of the widely used categories of temporary visas, allows minor children of an individual with H-1B status to enter the U.S. as H-4 dependents, a temporary nonimmigrant visa category that grants them legal status to remain in the country for a limited period of time.
Why are they facing deportation?
Until they turn 21, these “documented dreamers” will remain excluded from temporary protections against deportation, as well as from work authorization granted to them through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative. This requires that beneficiaries “not have legal status on June 15, 2012,” the Council reports.
Because these children do not have legal status to remain in the U.S., they are required to transition to a new temporary status or self-deport as they become undocumented and risk being subject to coercive measures.
As an exercise of prosecutorial discretion, DACA grants temporary relief from deportation and work authorization to a particular group of undocumented immigrants.
However, it does not grant permanent legal status to individuals and must be renewed every two years. To qualify for this benefit, applications must meet certain requirements, including the important one that the person “did not have legal status on June 15, 2012.”
However, in most cases, this requirement disqualifies “Documented Dreamers,” who generally have legal status.
What does the US government say?
On Thursday, the White House blamed Republicans for the legislative impasse.
“I talked about the bipartisan agreement that came out of the Senate, where we negotiated a process to help the so-called documented Dreamers. And unfortunately, Republicans, and I’ve said this many times at this podium today, voted against the agreement twice,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said recently.
Last month, a bipartisan group of 43 lawmakers, led by Senator Alex Padilla, called on the Biden administration to take urgent action to protect these Documented Dreamers.
“…because of the long backlog of green card applications, families with approved immigrant petitions are often stuck waiting decades to obtain permanent resident status,” they said in the June 13 letter.
