(LEX 18) — Thousands of undocumented Kentuckians are currently protected under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a federal policy allowing a limited group of people who arrived in the United States as children to live and work without fear of deportation.
As President-elect Donald Trump makes his return to the White House, some DACA recipients, also known as "Dreamers," are expressing concerns about the future of the program.
Omar Salinas, a Kentucky-raised EKU graduate, was just five years old when his family arrived in the United States, fleeing violence in El Salvador.
23 years later, he is still based in Kentucky, one of millions of people considered "undocumented."
"The thought was DACA would be a bandage while we passed a bigger immigration reform. But that never happened," Salinas said.
Since the Obama administration implemented the DACA policy, Salinas has had to reapply to be a part of the program every two years.
Because of DACA, he's able to live and work in the U.S., and he, like many DACA recipients, considers himself an American.
"This is the only life we know. A lot of us don't even speak the language of the countries where we're originally from and it's been shown time and time again that immigrants and DACA recipients contribute more to the economy than they take," he said.
According to 2023 data from the Department of Homeland Security, there are more than 578,000 active DACA recipients in the United States, 2,440 of whom reside in Kentucky.
Many of them are concerned about the incoming federal administration's hardline immigration policies and what they might mean for the future of DACA.
"There is going to be a mass deportation, because we just finished an illegal immigration crisis on the border," President-elect Trump's "border czar," Tom Homan, said in late November.
However, during a sit-down interview on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, Trump expressed openness to protecting DACA recipients.
"I think we can work with the Democrats and work something out," Trump said.
Matthew Boaz, an assistant law professor at the University of Kentucky, said the future is uncertain for people who entered the country illegally, DACA recipients included.
"I think it's a challenge for attorneys to keep up with, let alone individuals that are in a precarious status, or have family members that are in a precarious status," Boaz said.
He added that the president does have the legal ability to end DACA if he chooses to do so.
A legal challenge to DACA is also still pending in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which could also result in the termination of the program, even without action on behalf of the Trump administration.
