Immigration Article of the Day: Reflections on the DACA Cases in the Supreme Court — The ‘Illusion of Freedom by M. Isabel Medina

Reflections on the DACA Cases in the Supreme Court — The ‘Illusion of Freedom by M. Isabel Medina, 99 N.C.L. Rev. F. 101 (2020)

Abstract

This essay explores the path that the DACA cases took to the Supreme Court, the dichotomy raised by the “good”-“bad” immigrant narrative—a narrative that President Trump has embraced—and how that narrative impacted the way the cases reached the Court. Although DACA recipients are the quintessential “good” immigrants, their fate is unlikely to be resolved by the Court’s decision in the DACA cases. Congress should act to grant DACA recipients, the living embodiment of the American Dream, a path to permanent residency and citizenship. But Congress should also address reform for those “bad” immigrants who bear the responsibility for deciding to migrate to the United States, in particular, the parents of the U.S.-citizen and permanent resident children. The national conversation about immigrants should reflect the reality of human life and abandon simplistic views of choice about migration and work that render those choices, at the heart of the human experience, criminal.

KJ