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Connecticut 'Dreamers' In Limbo, Despite Judge’s Order To Keep DACA

Reed Saxon
/
AP
Demonstrators urging the Democratic Party to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act (DACA) rally outside the office of California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein in Los Angeles last week.

Some Connecticut recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, say they still worry about their futures. That’s even though a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restart the program that it canceled last year.

Mirka Dominguez Salinas, a DACA recipient, says she worries the federal order is only temporary.

“It doesn’t really lead anywhere. I’m just kind of still in this state of limbo with my status; whereas if I had a pathway to citizenship, I could strive towards something.”

Salinas says she just got a job as a substitute teacher in New Haven with her DACA status. The program lets residents who were brought to the country illegally as children apply to live and work in the United States.

Salinas she can’t take a permanent teaching position because her work permit would expire in the middle of next year. She doesn’t know if DACA will exist by then.

Cassandra Basler, a former senior editor at WSHU, came to the station by way of Columbia Journalism School in New York City. When she's not reporting on wealth and poverty, she's writing about food and family.