(Reuters) – Ilka Eren, 25, came to the United States from Turkey with her parents more than 15 years ago and lives in the country without legal authorization. <\/p>\n
While in college, she applied and qualified for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an Obama-era program that President Donald Trump vowed to end during his 2016 presidential campaign. <\/p>\n
The program does not change an immigrant\u2019s legal status but rather protects from deportation and gives the right to work to so-called \u201cDreamers,\u201d young people brought to the United States as children and living in the country illegally. Nearly 800,000 immigrants have received DACA protection since the program\u2019s launch in 2012. <\/p>\n
Eren\u2019s DACA status opened the door to several internships, and eventually to a job in New York at Ovation Travel Group, which provides travel services to corporations, as executive assistant to the chief financial officer. <\/p>\n
\u201cDACA literally changed my life,\u201d she said. \u201cI really don\u2019t know where I would be without it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Paul Metselaar, Ovation\u2019s chief executive, doesn\u2019t know where he\u2019d be without Eren. <\/p>\n
He said her job responsibilities have grown because of her abilities. He said she reminded him of his own grandparents, who immigrated to the United States to seek a better life. If Eren were to lose her work eligibility it would be a blow to his company, Metselaar said. <\/p>\n
But, he added, \u201cit would be much more of a blow to her family, and to who we are as a country.\u201d <\/p>\n
Trump is expected to announce a decision to end DACA on Tuesday, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation, but with a delay of up to six months to allow Congress to find a legislative solution. <\/p>\n
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to quickly repeal the program, but since taking office – even as he has stepped up immigration enforcement – he has at times taken a softer tone about DACA. \u201cWe love the Dreamers,\u201d he told reporters on Friday. <\/p>\n
Immigration hardliners within the Republican Party have pressured the president\u00a0to scrap the program. Nine Republican state attorneys general have said they will file a legal challenge to the program if the Trump administration does not end it by\u00a0Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Many business leaders have urged the president to keep DACA protections in place, including the heads of tech giants Microsoft (MSFT.O<\/span>) , Apple (AAPL.O<\/span>) and Facebook (FB.O<\/span>). They have generally cited a potential hit to the economy if the program were to end, although there is scant government data on Dreamers as a distinct economic group. <\/p>\n Still, with the U.S. economy at close to full employment, ending DACA would bring a net loss in productivity, said Giovanni Peri, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis who studies immigration. <\/p>\n Groups that support stricter immigration enforcement say that eliminating the program would bring benefits, too. <\/p>\n \u201cThe end of DACA would result in much-welcomed job openings for American college graduates and other American workers who are either unemployed or underemployed and feel completely locked out of the workforce and blocked from achieving their American dream,\u201d said Dave Ray, communications director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors reduced immigration.\u00a0 <\/p>\n In interviews with Reuters, DACA recipients and their employers emphasized another aspect of what it would mean to end the program: The holes such a move would leave in lives and workplaces. <\/p>\n \u201cI KNEW SHE WOULD BE SOMEONE\u201d <\/p>\n Georgina Lepe, who runs a real estate law and probate practice from her office in Rancho Cucamonga, California, liked Karla Martinez so much she hired her twice. \u00a0 <\/p>\n She first met Martinez when she was busing tables at a Mexican restaurant owned by Lepe\u2019s family and was impressed with her work ethic. When Martinez graduated from the University of Southern California in December 2016, Lepe hired her to help temporarily with marketing. <\/p>\n Martinez left after a few months to work elsewhere. Lepe later tracked her down and asked her to come back, this time as a full-time legal assistant. <\/p>\n \u201cEven when she was working at the restaurant, I knew she would be someone,\u201d said Lepe, who is 30 and, like Martinez, from a Mexican family. \u201cThe difference between (us) is, my family was able to help me out financially to achieve my goals.\u201d <\/p>\n Martinez, who came to the United States with her mother when she was four, helps pay the bills in the home she shares with her mother and two younger siblings. Now 24, she\u2019s planning to apply to law school – if DACA doesn\u2019t end and she can still afford to go back to school. <\/p>\n \u201cObviously I think about it and it\u2019s a little scary but I don\u2019t let it take over me,\u201d Martinez said. <\/p>\n Lepe says if Martinez\u2019s work permit is rescinded, \u201cI would keep Karla until the very last second\u201d and probably wouldn\u2019t hire a replacement. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone can compare,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n \u201cIT REALLY EMPOWERS YOU\u201d <\/p>\n Chuck Rocha, the founder of Solidarity Strategies, employs DACA recipient Luis Alcauter at his Washington D.C.-based political consulting firm, which specializes in outreach to Latinos. Losing Alcauter \u201cwould be devastating,\u201d Rochca said. <\/p>\n Alcauter, 27, came to the United States from Mexico when he was 13, and attended California State University, Fresno, where he developed an interest in politics, which led to his interning on Capitol Hill.\u00a0 The internship was possible, he said, because of his DACA status. <\/p>\n \u201cTo be able to have the documents and be able to apply wherever you want, it really empowers you to think beyond the place you were,\u201d Alcauter said. \u201cIt just empowers people to be able to find a job, to get a car, to buy a house, to move around, to contribute to their families.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI ACTUALLY HAVE A GOOD CAR\u201d <\/p>\n Juan Ochoa, CEO of Miramar Group, an Illinois-based facilities management company that oversees 1,200 buildings nationwide, said his company will hire an attorney to try to keep DACA employee Jay Meza, 23, if the program ends. <\/p>\n \u201cI have a good job now,\u201d said Meza, who came to the United States from Mexico with his parents and brother when he was 3 years old. \u201cI actually am looking forward to buying my first house. I actually have a good car.\u201d <\/p>\n Ochoa said Meza started at Miramar doing data entry and analyzing spreadsheets and went on to help the company build a system allowing it to track its buildings and employees. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have invested a lot of time and money in training Jay, and so it would be a significant loss to us,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Additional reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Sue Horton and Ross Colvin<\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feeds.reuters.com\/~r\/Reuters\/PoliticsNews\/~3\/NqjYFobzsXY\/immigrant-dreamers-and-their-bosses-wait-anxiously-for-trump-decision-idUSKCN1BF12J<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Reuters) – Ilka Eren, 25, came to the United States from Turkey with her parents more than 15 years ago and lives in the country without legal authorization. While in college, she applied and qualified for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an Obama-era program that President Donald Trump vowed to end during his 2016 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-89547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}