DACA Recipients Look To Supreme Court For Hope

The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday in a highly anticipated set of cases that threatens the legal status of some 700,000 young immigrants — often called DREAMers — who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. It's a program that President Trump tried to rescind seven months after taking office, only to have the lower courts block his action.

In 2012, President Barack Obama put the program in place to temporarily protect these young people from deportation. If you were in school, were a high school graduate, or had been honorably discharged from the military, and if you passed a background check, you were eligible for temporary legal status and a work permit, renewable every two years. The program is formally known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

"Rest easy"

President Trump, from the beginning, seemed conflicted about DACA, caught between the mass deportations he promised his political base during the campaign and his admiration for what so many of the DREAMers have accomplished.

These DACA recipients, who come from around the world, have become teachers, psychologists, business owners and doctors.

Their successes illustrate the reason that Republicans and Democrats in Congress tried to work out a DACA deal that Trump would sign in 2017. "Rest easy," Trump told the DREAMers in an April 2017 interview with The Associated Press.