Occupational Therapy - 2015

14 Washington Post, 2013). One solution that could improve the lives of many unauthorized immigrants, while also contribut- ing to the growth of the U.S. economy, would be to pro- vide those who are already residing here with at least temporary, if not permanent legal residency status. This small act could enable immigrants to obtain a driver’s license and social security number, reduce overcrowded emergency rooms through expanding immigrants’ ac- cess to health insurance plans, and provide immigrants with the financial assistance they need to gain a college education. While 72% of Americans are in favor of al- lowing unauthorized immigrants to legally reside in the United States provided they meet certain requirements (Pew Research Center, 2015), disagreements persist re- garding whether immigrants should be eligible to ap- ply for permanent residency or full citizenship, as well as regarding the timing and specific requirements for a potential pathway to legal status. Whereas some Americans favor legal pathways for unauthorized immigrants only after the country’s borders have been secured, others believe that pathways toward legal residency should be provided immediately. And still others believe that immigrants should have to pay fines, wait a required number of years, and/or prove that they are fluent in the English language before be- ing granted legal status (Pew Research Center, 2013). Despite majority public support for some type of legal status, as many as 36% of Americans believe that pro- viding a pathway to legal residency would reward those who have chosen to enter the United States through im- proper channels (Pew Research Center, 2015). In recent years, Congress has debated a federal bill that would provide somewhat of a compromise for those concerned about rewarding unauthorized immi- grants for their behaviors. If passed, the Development, Relief, and Education for AlienMinors Act, or “DREAM Act,” would provide relief to the millions of unauthor- ized immigrant children whose parents brought them to the United States before the age of 16, without of- fering direct benefits to their parents. Several variations of the DREAM Act have been considered in Congress over the years, including the following version, which was brought before the U.S. Senate in 2011. Under the DREAM Act of 2011, unauthorized immigrants who entered the U.S. as children would have been granted a conditional path to legal status upon proving that they: (a) had resided in the U.S. for at least five consecutive years; (b) were 15 years of age or younger when first brought to the U.S.; (c) had earned a high school diplo- ma or GED in the U.S.; (d) had been admitted to a U.S. institution of higher education; (e) had been of good moral character since their arrival in the U.S., with no serious criminal convictions; and (f) were below the age of 35 on the date of the legislation’s enactment. If, upon meeting the previous requirements, during the sub- sequent six-year period, they either completed two or more years in a bachelor’s degree program, or served for two years in the U.S. military, they would be eligible to apply for permanent residency (DREAM Act of 2011). A 2010 report by the Congressional Budget Of- fice and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that passing the DREAM Act would reduce the federal defi- cit by approximately $1.4 billion over a 10-year period and increase government revenues by $2.3 million over the same period (Congressional Budget Office, 2010). However, despite being brought before Congress on multiple occasions, introduced before each of the 107th through 112th Congressional sessions, spanning from 2001 to 2011, the DREAM Act has failed to gain the bipartisan support it needs to pass in both the House of Representatives and the Senate (Library of Congress, n.d.) As a result of the DREAM Act’s continuing fail- ure to pass, in 2012, the Obama administration created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which offers unauthorized immigrant chil- dren who meet similar criteria to those included in the DREAM Act protection from deportation for a period of two years, subject to renewal, as well as employment authorization upon demonstration of its “economic ne- cessity” (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2013). In the two years following DACA’s inception, 55% of the 1.2 million unauthorized immigrants who had already met the criteria applied to the program, with approxi- mately 25,000 of those applying for a two-year renewal (Batalova, Hooker, & Capps, 2014). In November of 2014, President Obama an- nounced, via executive action, that he was expanding the DACA program by eliminating the current cutoff date of June 2007 and extending eligibility to children who were brought into the United States by their par- ents any time prior to January 2010. He also announced that he was providing temporary work authorization and deferral from deportation for three years at a time, for the approximately 4 million unauthorized immi- grants who are parents of U.S. citizens or legal perma- nent residents (Parlapiano, 2014). OCCUPATION: A Medium of Inquiry for Students, Faculty & Other Practitioners Advocating for Health through Occupational Studies November 2015, Volume 1, Number 1