click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cFebruary rolls around, then March, April \u2014 and now people are reaching out to us saying they\u2019re about to lose their jobs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Several of her clients had their DACA status expire while waiting for renewals, which essentially turned them into undocumented immigrants overnight. Amezola said several of her clients work in essential jobs, like nursing. Now that they cannot legally work, some of them are selling food at swap meets to cover bills.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey still have to go out there and hustle,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Amezola has been practicing law since before the creation of the DACA program in 2012. She views these administrative delays as a betrayal of the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point, they\u2019re not kids, they\u2019re all grown now,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re parents and business owners. They\u2019re established in the community. They are more American than they are whatever their birth country is.\u201d<\/p>\n
For DACA recipients in San Diego, having your status expire while living in one of the most unaffordable cities in the county can be devastating.<\/p>\n
One DACA holder told KPBS her bills quickly piled up. She asked KPBS not to disclose her name out of concern for her immigration status.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bills and rent are not going to wait for you to find a job,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The woman worked as a paralegal at the San Diego County District Attorney\u2019s Office. She specialized in child abuse, elder abuse and domestic violence cases. She told KPBS these administrative delays feel like a personal attack \u2014 as if the government does not want people like her in the country anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to break us down,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause if you can\u2019t survive here, what other option is there for you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Adam Pe\u00f1a is another local immigration lawyer who has seen several clients have their DACA status expire this year.<\/p>\n
The most difficult cases involve people with U.S. citizen children who suddenly find themselves out of work.<\/p>\n
Pe\u00f1a is still waiting for an application he submitted for a client six months ago<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has three U.S.-born children \u2014 the eldest of which is active-duty U.S. Army and has been defending this country for four years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He blames the Trump administration\u2019s inefficiencies for the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing is this administration taking forever,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re dragging their feet and it\u2019s coming to a point where people are left without protection and that puts them at risk of deportation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rosario, the mother of three, told KPBS the last few months have been extremely difficult. She asked KPBS to only use her first name out of concern for her immigration status.<\/p>\n
Rosario\u2019s employer told her they\u2019d have to lay her off because she no longer has a legal work permit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that this is fair for our family,\u201d Rosario said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying so hard to work hard and be good citizens, to be an example that we can live here with no issues at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Significant delays in DACA renewals are causing people to lose their legal status and work authorization. Under DACA,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-399980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}