Description

Book Synopsis

The 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was supposed to be a stepping stone, a policy innovation announced by the White House designed to put pressure on Congress for a broader, lasting set of legislative changes. Those changes never materialized, and the people who hoped to benefit from them have been forced to navigate a tense and contradictory policy landscape ever since, haunted by these unfulfilled promises. Legal Phantoms tells their story.

After Congress failed to pass a comprehensive immigration bill in 2013, President Obama pivoted in 2014 to supplementing DACA with a deferred action program (known as DAPA) for the parents of citizens and lawful permanent residents and a DACA expansion (DACA+) in 2014. But challenges from Republican-led states prevented even these programs from going into effect. Interviews with would-be applicants, immigrant-rights advocates, and government officials reveal how such failed immigration-reform efforts continue to affect not only those who had hoped to benefit, but their families, communities, and the country in which they have made an uneasy home. Out of the ashes of these lost dreams, though, people find their own paths forward through uncharted legal territory with creativity and resistance.

Legal Phantoms: Executive Action and the Haunting

    Product form

    A Paperback / softback by Susan Bibler Coutin, Jennifer M. Chacón, Stephen Lee

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      Book details

      Publisher Stanford University Press
      Published 30 January 2024
      ISBN-13 9781503637573
      978-1503637573
      ISBN-10 1503637573
      Also in:
      Citizenship and nationality law Migration, immigration and emigration Social and cultural anthropology

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      The 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was supposed to be a stepping stone, a policy innovation announced by the White House designed to put pressure on Congress for a broader, lasting set of legislative changes. Those changes never materialized, and the people who hoped to benefit from them have been forced to navigate a tense and contradictory policy landscape ever since, haunted by these unfulfilled promises. Legal Phantoms tells their story.

      After Congress failed to pass a comprehensive immigration bill in 2013, President Obama pivoted in 2014 to supplementing DACA with a deferred action program (known as DAPA) for the parents of citizens and lawful permanent residents and a DACA expansion (DACA+) in 2014. But challenges from Republican-led states prevented even these programs from going into effect. Interviews with would-be applicants, immigrant-rights advocates, and government officials reveal how such failed immigration-reform efforts continue to affect not only those who had hoped to benefit, but their families, communities, and the country in which they have made an uneasy home. Out of the ashes of these lost dreams, though, people find their own paths forward through uncharted legal territory with creativity and resistance.

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