Juan Vargas was elected to Congress in 2012. Various versions of the Dream Act have been floating around the U.S. Capitol for about twice as long.
The San Diego Democrat has long been passionate about protecting immigrants, whether they are in the country legally or not.
He further has backed repeated attempts to grant permanent residency to immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, people often referred to as “Dreamers.”
“For me, it’s don’t give up,” he said in an interview last week.
The popular program that gives hundreds of thousands of Dreamers temporary legal status — DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — has been teetering on the brink of disappearing.
President Donald Trump tried to kill DACA during his first term, contending President Barack Obama did not have the authority to create the program in 2012. Though courts have kept DACA alive as legal challenges play out, rulings have cast doubt on its future. Trump and his allies say the policy requires congressional approval.
Vargas recently joined 200 members of Congress, including other Democrats in the San Diego delegation, to reintroduce the American Dream and Promise Act, which would provide a pathway to citizenship for some 2.7 million immigrants, mostly young people, including DACA recipients.
“As the son of immigrants and a first-generation American, I know what the American Dream looks like. Dreamers deserve those same opportunities,” Vargas said in a statement after the bill was reintroduced.
The bill also would include people who have been given Temporary Protected Status and have been in the U.S. since 2017. The bill would exclude TPS holders who arrived more recently.
But the reality is there may not have been a less conducive political climate to advance such legislation since the original Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act was introduced in 2001.
“Do I think it’s a useless gesture? No,” Vargas said, adding, “I do think there’s an opportunity to do something when things settle down.”
On the one hand, Vargas acknowledged the climb may appear to be even steeper with Trump’s crackdown on border enforcement and plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, which could include Dreamers and eventually DACA recipients.
In the interview, Vargas occasionally invoked odds-against-us expressions such as “Keep hope alive.”
But he alluded to recent and past comments by Trump as reasons for guarded optimism.
“We have to do something about the Dreamers because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age,” Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in December. “I want to be able to work something out. … I think we can work with the Democrats and work something out.”
That was familiar talk from Trump during his first term, when Dream Act legislation went nowhere. But Vargas suggested that on Dreamers at least, Trump is in a similar position to President Richard Nixon when the staunch anti-communist surprised the world by establishing ties with the People’s Republic of China in 1972.
“He has the capacity, as Nixon went to China, to say ‘Listen, not these young people,’” Vargas said, regarding potential deportations.
Given Trump’s tough-on-immigration stance, Vargas said the president likely would suffer “no political harmful effect” from giving Dreamers permanent legal status.
Vargas still believes trade-offs can be made to make that happen, if need be, though he noted he got into political hot water with other Democrats and immigrant advocates for supporting a controversial compromise before.
House Republicans wanted to strip the citizenship component from a bill while allowing legal residency for Dreamers. Vargas didn’t like it, but thought it might be a step forward. Opponents said that would create second-class residents, and then-House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called him an “outlier,” according to Vargas.
“If we could have that deal today, we’d pray to the Virgin of Guadalupe to have it,” he said in the interview. “Let’s help as many people as we can.”
He speculated, however, that some Republicans might no longer be averse to a path to citizenship for Dreamers. Vargas said he believed GOP members of Congress opposed that out of concern that these new citizens would vote against them. Ironically, he saw a silver lining for Dreamers in Trump’s victory in November.
“Even though Trump has demonized immigrants, particularly Mexicans… a whole bunch of Latinos voted for him,” Vargas said.
Over the years, opponents have claimed the DREAM Act would grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants and encourage increased migration to the U.S. Others wanted to see the proposal as part of comprehensive immigration reform.
A Gallup poll in July found 55 percent of Americans wanted overall immigration reduced, an increase from earlier polls. But 70 percent of those surveyed favored allowing immigrants living in the U.S. illegally the chance to become U.S. citizens if they meet certain requirements over a period of time.
Support jumped to 81 percent for immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
People in DACA have proved a boon to the U.S. economy, according to research by Congress, the Brookings Institution and others.
In 2023, 94.1 percent of DACA recipients surveyed were employed, up from 89.2 percent in 2019, according to the Center for American Progress. Nearly half have college degrees and more than half have moved on to better jobs.
People in DACA cannot have a felony conviction, a significant misdemeanor conviction, or three or more misdemeanor convictions.
Vargas’ office cited estimates that DACA recipients in 2022 earned nearly $27.9 billion and contributed nearly $2.1 billion to Social Security and Medicare, despite not being eligible for those benefits under current law.
Maybe appealing to Trump’s transactional nature would work. He recently said the U.S. will sell “gold cards” to wealthy foreigners for $5 million, giving them a right to live and work here and putting them on a path to citizenship.
DACA recipients and Dreamers collectively bring in a whole lot more — to the economy and American society.
Rep. Vargas will tell you all about it.
What they said
Associated Press
“Speaker Johnson tells GOP lawmakers to skip town halls after an onslaught of protests.”
