Undocumented immigrants are frustrated with Biden on reforms as Build Back Better stalls

Katia Escobar was preparing to start college at the University of Houston last year, excited about the prospect that Congress might soon pass legislation that would wipe out the barriers she faced as an undocumented “Dreamer,” brought to the U.S. from Mexico illegally by her parents when she was a year old.

But today, the once bright hopes of Escobar — and millions of other Dreamers — have all but evaporated. Despite President Biden’s brief renewed pledge in his State of the Union address to push for a “pathway to citizenship” for Dreamers, farmworkers and essential workers, the prospect for immigration reform seems more remote than ever, and undocumented immigrants like Escobar are increasingly disillusioned.

“I’m fighting for my life, and many others are with me on that,” said Escobar, who has become an activist on the issue. “My life and the lives of millions of others who are like me should not be up for debate.”

As for Biden’s remarks during his address, Escobar added that she’s not sure she trusts the White House to be truly committed. “We have seen in the past him making empty promises,” she said.

The White House did not respond to a Yahoo News request for comment on this story.

Escobar is an example of the real-life costs of congressional inaction on the issue of immigration — and the political risks for Biden and Democrats as they face challenging midterm elections without being able to deliver on an issue that has been a top priority of Hispanic groups for years.

A poll from Morning Consult/Politico released in January found that 56 percent of registered voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of immigration, an apparent reflection of persistent reports of surging border crossings since he took office. But while the spike in illegal entries has been amplified by conservative media and denounced by GOP lawmakers, some of the most stinging criticism of the White House is coming from Hispanic activists who once enthusiastically welcomed the Democratic president’s election and now see the administration as giving them little more than lip service.

“The reality is that our community has been fooled by the Democratic Party in a lot of ways when it comes to this issue,” said Julio Ricardo Varela, the founder of the news outlet Latino Rebels.

As for Escobar, she has been able to enroll as a freshman at the University of Houston. But being undocumented, she has been unable to receive financial aid from the federal government. She’s also had difficulty finding work to support herself and faces an uncertain future once she graduates, hostage to the seemingly endless debates in Washington over immigration.

“There’s a lot of things they have promised us,” she said. “Right now, before we even give them the chance to start giving up on us, we just want to remind them that they have a moral obligation to pass citizenship to 11 million undocumented immigrants.”

High hopes from a historic election

As a candidate in 2020, Biden promised bold and historic moves to end what he called then-President Donald Trump’s “unrelenting assault on our values and our history as a nation of immigrants,” putting an end to family separations and the southern border wall. But he also specifically pledged to “protect Dreamers and their families” by pushing legislation to provide them with a means to obtain legal status. And in the meantime, after a federal judge ruled that an Obama-era program called DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — which provided undocumented immigrants like Escobar with temporary legal status — was unlawful, Biden moved to reinstate it.

During the first year of his presidency, Biden seemed to deliver. He signed executive orders pausing the construction of the wall at the southern border, dissolved bans on legal immigration to the U.S., and created a Family Reunification Task Force to reunify families who were separated at the border under the previous administration.

But his efforts to protect Dreamers fizzled in the face of fierce resistance from the courts and from Republicans in Congress. After he ordered the Department of Homeland Security to reinstate DACA, a federal judge in Texas blocked it, ruling that the move exceeded the president’s legal authority. And the White House’s push for legislation to give Dreamers legal status got bogged down in a legislative morass over the administration’s massive social spending and climate change bill known as Build Back Better.

The problem with the bill

A version of the Build Back Better bill passed in the House in November 2021 — complete with provisions that would allow Dreamers, essential workers, temporary protected status holders and deferred enforcement departure recipients the chance to apply for lawful permanent residence.

But the bill has gone nowhere in the evenly divided Senate. With no Republican support, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., proved to be the main roadblock, objecting to a massive new spending measure that he argued would fuel inflation and add to the national debt.

Meanwhile, the immigration proposals to address the plight of Dreamers have faced their own obstacles.

The Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, proved to be another major barrier, ruling three times against the Democrats’ push to include immigration reform in the bill on the grounds that it was not primarily a budget proposal — a requirement under Senate rules for a reconciliation package that is not subject to a filibuster.

But more broadly, activists charge that the Biden White House never made the issue a top priority.

“You had a previous Republican president who had no problem issuing countless executive orders when it comes to immigration. I don’t think you have a Democratic administration right now that has prioritized this,” Varela said, referencing the more than 400 executive orders that Trump issued on the subject.

“Let’s get it done once and for all,” Biden declared in his State of the Union push for immigration reform, touting proposals that — in addition to protection for Dreamers — would secure the border with new technologies and beefed-up patrols “to catch more human traffickers.”

“It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s the economically smart thing to do,” said Biden.

But the political obstacles for the Dreamers remain high, with most conservatives still dead-set against any moves toward granting “citizenship for people who have broken the law,” said Timothy Kane, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution who specializes in immigration reform.

However, several Senate Republicans have indicated they are willing to hold up the House-passed bill to provide a pathway to citizenship.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he sees “justice” for Dreamers as a “legitimate thing to do” but said any legislation that provides them with legal status must come with measures to bolster border security and immigration enforcement.

As for Escobar, while she continues to pursue higher education, her legal status remains in perpetual limbo.

Last March, she applied for DACA status in Texas under the Obama-era program. But her application was thrown out when U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Texas ruled that the program was illegal and ordered a halt to all first-time applications to the program.

“I really was depending on this program to give me a work permit to be able to generate income during my time in college to support myself. Of course, that all changed in an instant, and my life was once again in limbo,” Escobar said.

Before choosing the University of Houston, Escobar was looking at several universities. But because her status makes her ineligible for FAFSA, or federal student aid, her options were slim.

Her status also made it difficult for her to find funding for her education outside the government, as she said many scholarships were not being offered to undocumented students.

Escobar said she was ultimately able to fund her way through college after applying for and being awarded money through the Texas Application for State Financial Aid, or TASFA.

And while she said she’s glad Biden mentioned immigration reform during his State of the Union address, she wishes he had emphasized how important it is for Dreamers like her that Congress act right away.

“The situation is urgent,” she said. “We need these protections now.”