Dreamers Deserve To Stay In The Only Country They Know As Home

More and more Dreamers are getting swept up in the federal government’s anti-immigrant agenda despite holding work permits and protection from deportation under the popular and successful DACA program.

In southern California, a DACA recipient and rideshare driver who has called the U.S. his home for two decades, faces deportation after simply taking a wrong turn while driving a customer.

NBC News reported late last month that 34-year-old Erick Hernandez was driving passengers to San Ysidro – “known as the ‘most southern community in California’ because it is so close to the Mexican border,” the report said – when he missed his exit and ended up in Tijuana. “Because DACA recipients are not allowed to leave the country without prior approval, federal immigration authorities took Hernandez into custody when he tried to return to the U.S.” He’s called the U.S. his home for two decades.

“It seems like at this moment, there isn’t that much mercy towards people who make mistakes,” his attorney told the Los Angeles Times. “I would hope that [Customs and Border Protection] agents would still understand and know that this is an accident, that this person didn’t intend to abandon their claims, but they are a good person, and they accidentally exited the U.S.”

Sadly, the arrest and detention of this Dreamer isn’t an outlier, but rather a “growing pattern,” as United We Dream’s Anabel Mendoza told NBC News.

Javier Diaz Santana, a 32-year-old DACA recipient who is deaf and mute, was detained for nearly a month following a chaotic raid that targeted his worksite. Diaz was arriving at his car wash job when he saw masked immigration agents descending on the location and “shouting commands that he could not hear or understand,” NBC Los Angeles reported. But when he tried to use his phone in order to communicate with them, they snatched it away. And when he asked to be uncuffed so he could use his hands to try to communicate with them, they refused.

“An officer showed Diaz his phone, where he had typed a question: What country are you from? Diaz couldn’t answer,” the LA Times reported. “I can’t sign with my hands cuffed,” Diaz later recalled. “They took my power.”

Diaz was then transferred to a detention facility in Texas as immigration officials sought to deport him to a country he hadn’t called home since he was just five. Diaz spent nearly a month there before an immigration judge granted him release on bond. He would later share that the court interpreter who was explaining the hearing to him “was the first time in weeks someone communicated with him using sign language,” the LA Times reported.

Meanwhile, to others afraid of also being ensnared by an anti-immigrant agenda that’s also targeted day laborers, ice cream vendors, landscapers, and many others simply trying to support themselves and their families, the federal government offered this “advice”: get out.

“Illegal aliens can take control of their departure with the CBP Home App,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Truthout when questioned on the slew of arrests targeting Dreamers. “The United States is offering illegal aliens $1,000 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live [the] American dream.”

These unjust words and actions come as polling consistently shows that an overwhelming majority of the American people want permanent relief – not detention and deportation – for Dreamers.

And, it’s simply the right thing to do. DACA recipients live in every single state in the nation. They’re teachers, first responders, and business owners, caregivers and parents of American citizens. They boost the economy and help sustain critical programs essential to the everyday lives of millions of Americans, such as Social Security and Medicare.

FWD.us further revealed that as DACA recipients have increased their median income from $4,000 in 2012 to nearly $45,000 in 2025, beneficiaries have paid “well more than a hundred billion dollars to the economy as well as tens of billions in combined taxes.” DACA recipients have also outpaced U.S.-born Americans when it comes to opening a business.

Earlier this year, CAP highlighted the story of Texas DACA recipient Christian Serrano, who started a home design and construction business as a way to support his family. “Serrano’s contributions to the local economy have not gone unnoticed: He was recently honored with Dallas Business Journal’s 2023 ‘40 Under 40’ award,” the Center for American Progress said last year.

And for all the talk about “following the rules,” that’s exactly what DACA recipients have been doing for years now. They’re staying out of trouble and passing their background checks. They’re paying their fees and submitting their biometrics. They’ve been keeping their end of the bargain, and they deserve to stay in the country they call home. Our nation needs to do its part.

“I have DACA. I’ve already applied. I went through the steps. I thought everything was fine,” Diaz continued to NBC Los Angeles. “I was doing everything, following everything.” Attacking Dreamers isn’t just wrong, it’s self-defeating, because when the federal government punishes DACA recipients, it’s really punishing American communities.