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DACA recipients unsettled to learn ICE can access their personal information

By immigrationprof

While the nation awaits a decision from the Supreme Court on the DACA rescission, DACA beneficiaries are planning for increased vulnerability to deportation. Without DACA, they lose their temporary protections and most lack other forms of lawful presence. One thing they had not counted on, though, was affirmative sharing of information between the agency that issued DACA (USCIS) and enforcement operations (ICE and EOIR). Per USCIS guidelines, ICE, or any other national security or law enforcement agency, must submit a formal request for any information pertaining to a DACA recipient — and it may be disclosed only if the person poses a national or public security threat or has been issued a notice to appear before a judge. People whose cases are deferred pursuant to DACA will not be referred to ICE, per USCIS. USCIS says this has not changed.

However, CNN reports that emails and documents obtained by the nonprofit advocacy group Make the Road through a FOIA action, reveal that a DACA recipient’s entire application file can be directly accessed by ICE. The emails dated September 2, 2017 — a few days before Trump announced plans to end DACA — between then senior counselor to the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Gene Hamilton and ex-DHS spokesman Jonathan Hoffman, Hamilton wrote, “USCIS and ICE already share information about DACA beneficiaries. There’s no way to stop that.”

Eliana Fernandez, the DACA recipient quoted in the CNN story who now works as a community activist for Make the Road New York, says:

“For all of us, this is a huge violation of trust… One of the key promises, when DACA was enacted, was that the applicant’s information would be protected from disclosure for immigration enforcement purposes.”

Fernandez said she believes it gives new urgency to the Supreme Court decision. “The Supreme Court justices might not think that we are currently at risk of deportation, but these communications make it clear that ICE can literally go into USCIS databases to get our information without even submitting a formal request or having to specify a reason why, and it’s scary to think what can happen if we lose the protection of DACA.”

MHC