‘No allies left’: Dreamers, DACA recipients are left out amid rightward shift on immigration

Young undocumented immigrants known as "Dreamers" once had the political leverage to force a vote on a bill that would help them earn citizenship. But in the now-defunct Senate bipartisan immigration proposal, Dreamers were ignored altogether, a casualty of the rightward shift on immigration.

This is true despite poll after poll over a number of years showing support for these immigrants who've lived most of their lives in the U.S., having arrived as young children with parents and family who either remained here after their visas expired or entered the U.S. without authorization.

While some lawmakers say recent years' arrivals mean "we don't know who is coming in," they once again chose to leave in the shadows hundreds of thousands of Dreamers and other people who have lived and worked in the U.S. most of their lives without legal status.

"Dreamers" is a term based on legislation introduced in 2001 to provide a path to citizenship for this category of young immigrants. It includes the more than 500,000 who have protection from deportation through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which allows eligible young adults to work and study in the U.S. It's been compared to the GI Bill in its ability to launch some young adults into the middle class, thus benefiting their communities, too.

Not all Dreamers are eligible or can afford to enroll or are accepted into DACA, an Obama-era program, which is also at risk: Then-President Donald Trump tried to stop it, and it has been blocked from accepting new applications by a Republican-led court challenge. An estimated 1.1 million eligible Dreamers don't have DACA.

In the early 2000s, Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal