After months of negotiations, lawmakers are no closer to a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In a game of tug of war, the White House and some Republicans are insistent on adding new immigration restrictions as a contingency in order to continue the Obama-era program that allows hundreds of thousands of children brought to the U.S. illegally to live and work without punishment.

Last week, President Trump’s administration proposed a deal that included a path to citizenship for more than one million undocumented immigrants, but also included a push for enhanced enforcement powers. If Congress can’t reach a deal by the March 5 expiration date, 800,000 people nationwide—including 8,000 in Maryland—will lose their status, making them an easy target for deportation.

“It’s a tradeoff in a sense,” said University of Maryland professor Christina Getrich. “On the one hand, it’s helping people like Dreamers while at the same time hurting their parents and family members that weren’t eligible.”

In order to qualify for DACA, applicants are required to be fingerprinted, have passports, and update their address with each move, making it easier for Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) to locate them. 

“Most of the Dreamers’ parents are undocumented or some of them have temporary protective status, which is also ending,” Getrich said. “So it’s not only scary for the DACA individual that the government has all this information on, it can really endanger the whole family.” 

Just last week, it was announced that ICE has now gained access to a nationwide license plate tracking database. This will provide access to billions of license plate records and provide real time location tracking to assist with ongoing investigations. The agency also made the decision to expand deportations beyond criminal offenders, further igniting rumors of politically motivated enforcement. 

At a rally in Highlandtown last February following an onslaught of ICE raids nationwide, DACA recipient and Ecuadoran immigrant Lourdes Ortega spoke with Baltimore about the fear in her community.

“Families have been scared to leave their homes,” she said. “They don’t want to go outside and they’re afraid to send their children to school.”

The heavily Latino population of Southeast Baltimore is especially nervous about the DACA program being in jeopardy and the latest announcements from ICE.

“It’s also an attack on our economy,” said Catalina Rodriguez-Lima, director of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant and Multicultural Affairs. “A lot of these people have bought homes, go to schools, are business owners, and create jobs.” 

At President Trump’s first State of the Union address last night, he spoke about immigration and family-based migration saying that programs like DACA and the diversity visa are the reasons for increased terror attacks in the U.S. The president used those statements as leverage to garner support for his proposed plan to allow 1.8 million undocumented immigrants to gain legal status in exchange for increased border security. In fact, he never mentioned the future of DACA or the Dreamers in his speech aside from proclaiming, “Americans are dreamers, too.”

“Tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties—Democrats and Republicans—to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed,” Trump said. “My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans—to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American dream, because Americans are dreamers, too.”

Local Democratic lawmakers were not pleased by Trump’s rhetoric regarding the future of immigration policy and took to Twitter to express their disdain. Senator Chris Van Hollen commented that the only part he enjoyed about the address was, “My fellow Americans.” When it came to increased border security, he had more to say about that.

“The administration’s unrelenting efforts to tear immigrant families apart and waste taxpayers’ money on an ineffective wall has put thousands of families in crisis,” he tweeted. “And in both word and deed, Trump has diminished our stature around the world and undermined our national security.”

Senator Ben Cardin was also not shy about criticizing the president’s remarks.

“Our union endures,” he said on Twitter. “But America’s standing is diminished in the eyes of the world because of [President Trump]’s brazen attempts to shut our doors and marginalize the compassion and opportunity that America has symbolized for generations.”

Maryland’s only Republican congressional delegate Andy Harris has not yet commented on the State of the Union address, however, last week he spoke about his thoughts on DACA and the government shutdown.

“Senate Dems want to shut down the federal government and deny health insurance to children across America over an arbitrary DACA deadline,” he tweeted.

With both sides opposing the administration’s plan, it seems the only option being thrown around is a deal that requires a trade of sorts—aggressive immigration measures, like a $25 million wall, in exchange for DACA—making citizens feel like pieces in a larger political game.   

“To be a political pawn in the way that they’ve become is just really disheartening,” Getrich said. “I think for a while it was empowering being a DACA recipient, it felt like people actually cared—it sort of validated who they were. But I think that people started feeling like no one actually care and it’s just for political reasons.”

On the one-year anniversary of her release from prison, Chelsea Manning wants the world to know that she means business. After spending seven years in prison for passing sensitive government documents to Wikileaks, Manning is seeking to run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland. Originally sentenced to 35 years, her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama to time served and she was released in May 2017.

While in prison, Manning came out as transgender, though she’s not the first (even in Maryland) to challenge a sitting member of Congress. Retired Navy SEAL Kristen Beck attempted to unseat U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer in 2016, but only got 12 percent of the vote. 

Manning, who officially filed on January 11, will be challenging two-term Democrat Senator Ben Cardin, who is up for reelection in November. (Cardin’s spokesperson told Baltimore that the Senator “is looking forward to a vigorous discussion of the issues and a robust conversation with Maryland voters.”) We got a chance to talk with Manning about her time in prison, her political platform, and what she thinks of her critics.

You’re originally from Oklahoma. Why did you choose to run in Maryland?
I’ve been a resident of Maryland since 2006. I moved here after living homeless in Chicago for several months. I went to Montgomery College and I lived here for a few years before I enlisted in the military. Even when I was in the military, I was always coming back home to Maryland. My aunt lives here—I have roots here.

What inspired you to get into politics?
This time last year, I was still in prison. When I was released, I had this notion that I’m going to go home, retire, and live this quiet, comfortable life. And I get outside and the world is such a very strange and different place. Being out and about made me recognize just how important it is for us to combat the forces of political repression and oppression that many people all over the country—not just in Maryland or Baltimore—face every day.

It’s been getting progressively worse. I’ve said this enough times, but I came outside and it seemed like a dystopian novel, like the world that I just entered into is just the most boring dystopian novel I’ve ever read.

You are going up against two-term Senator Ben Cardin. What do you plan to do differently?
I voted for him twice. What makes me different is I’m trying to present issues that are important. It’s not about him—it’s more about the establishment, regardless if they are left or right. We have a lot of these nameless, faceless career politicians who are not dealing with the issues in our communities that we’re worried about. We live in this domestic population where the criminal justice system, our police system, our surveillance state have taken over our entire lives. Many of us now live in fear.

What current issues are you passionate about?
We need to roll back a lot of those federal bureau prisons. It’s become a very militarized force. We have police and we have these massive prisons and instead of defending these systems, we have to start rolling it back, releasing prisoners, start sending people home, and we need to end this. We have the largest incarcerated population in the world and that should give us thought.

What about healthcare and immigration? Those are hot topics right now.
I believe that every single person that needs healthcare should be given access to healthcare that is free, that is unconditional, and that is private. The Affordable Care Act was a handout to insurance companies and a Band-Aid to a much deeper problem in our healthcare system—it didn’t go far enough. I support a single-payer healthcare system, how that gets implemented is up for debate. I certainly believe that the end result should be free.

I also believe that people have an absolute right to come into this country. The immigration system is being used today to go after minority groups. The immigration systems have been weaponized against minority communities in our country and we need to roll back on that and we need to stop.

Tell me about your campaign slogan, #WeGotThis.
It’s a personal mantra of mine. Whenever things looked hopeless [in prison] and we had no evidence that we were going to get through this, I would say “we got this,” and I would repeat this to myself and the people around me. Even when we could see the light at the end of the tunnel, it was important to remember that doesn’t mean the end of the tunnel isn’t there. “We got this” is an embodiment of that. I started saying it on Twitter without even realizing it and it morphed into a hashtag over the last several months.

What do you have to say, if anything, to the critics who say you shouldn’t be trusted and think that your past deems you unfit for the job?
My team is going to have a chance to show ourselves, we’re going to have a chance to make this campaign work and we are going to be able to address these things. The haters are going to hate no matter what, we’re going to face criticism, and deal with conspiracy theories. The pundits are often wrong, they’ll give their two cents, but pundits don’t make policies and they don’t determine how the country is run. So we’ll see what happens. We got this.

With all the news buzzing around immigration laws and the recent suspension of DACA, local journalist and aspiring genealogist Jennifer Mendelsohn (and occasional contributor to Baltimore) has been tracing the lineage of prominent ultra-conservative and anti-immigration personalities in a project she’s dubbed #ResistanceGenealogy.

How did you get into genealogy?
It was just sort of by accident. About four years ago, somebody mentioned on Facebook a company on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, on Rivington Street. I remembered we had cousins that lived on that street, and I Googled their names and a listing for the census popped up. It was so cool; I didn’t know you could search the census. One thing led to another, I got an Ancestry subscription and became hopelessly obsessed.

What about it drew you in?
It turned out to be a very natural fit for my skills as a reporter. I already knew how to follow an information trail, and look for clues, and solve puzzles. As a kid, I used to love those logic grid puzzles—and that’s exactly what genealogy is. You’re trying to make pieces fit and solve a mystery—I love it, it’s so satisfying.

Tell me about #ResistanceGenealogy.
I spent a lot of free time doing genealogy research—a huge part of what I do is because of my own background—Eastern European Jewish immigrant. My identity is very strongly connected to ‘hyphenated Americans.’ My understanding of what it means to be American is very closely tied to being an immigrant. So when I hear all these politicians slamming immigrants, I just know that unless you came on the Mayflower, you’re Native American, or your ancestors came in slave ships—you are an immigrant.

I think a lot of people who think of themselves as quintessential Americans are really just assimilated immigrants looking down on the next wave and not liking what they see. When I see these people spouting off how terrible these immigrants are and how we need to close our borders, I just thought it might be fun to start looking at their trees and point out the hypocrisy.

So, this is what led you to research conservative commentator Tomi Lahren?
After I saw her post about immigrants coming here legally, I found that Tomi Lahren’s great-great-grandfather was indicted by a federal grand jury for naturalization fraud. I put that on Twitter and Wonkette asked me to write it up as a piece. It went sort of quasi-viral and got picked up a million other places, and was tweeted by people with large followings—it became this big funny thing.

He was actually acquitted by the trial jury, but it’s pretty ridiculous that she’s talking about everybody who doesn’t come here legally should be thrown out, but by the grace of God, her own family is still here.

Have you looked into anybody else?
I think the first person I ever searched outside of my family might have been Congressman Steve King from Iowa because he made that statement, ‘We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.’ And sure enough, I found out that his own grandmother came as a child from Germany. And I thought, ‘It wasn’t that long ago, Congressman King, that your family would have been looked at as someone else’s babies.’

I’ve also looked into [Fox News’] Tucker Carlson, and Stephen Miller—President [Donald] Trump’s senior advisor who made the comment about how American policies shouldn’t favor immigrants who don’t speak English, when his own great-grandmother didn’t speak English [laughs].

What is your hope in uncovering this information?
It’s not to shame people, or make them feel guilty about what their ancestors did. It’s just to prove that the desire to be American has been so overwhelming and universal for centuries. Americans come from all places. We shouldn’t be pulling up the ladder behind us—we should be sending a hand continually because that’s what America is all about.

Update September 5: On Tuesday, President Trump announced, via Jeff Sessions, that the DACA program would be suspended.

“I am here today to announce that the program known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama administration is being rescinded,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. 

The Department of Homeland Security will cease processing new applications for the program effective Tuesday, however the administration plans to continue to renew permits for those expiring in the next six months. No one’s status will be revoked before it has expired and many applications received on Tuesday will still be processed.

The move to end the program puts Congress on a deadline to come up with a solution that will protect DACA participants who—under this new ruling—begin losing their status March 5, 2018. 

If Congress does not act, nearly 300,000 people would lose their DACA status in 2018 and more than 320,000 more in 2019. 

President Donald Trump is expected to dismantle a program put in place by former president Barack Obama that allows hundreds of thousands of children brought to the U.S. illegally to live and work without punishment.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has been under scrutiny since its creation in 2012 by members of the GOP. For weeks, President Trump has been deciding whether to continue the program or face legal reprimand from several Republican attorney generals who deem the program unconstitutional. 

A decision is expected to come as early as today—four days before the September 5 deadline set by the attorney generals. If Trump opts to terminate the program, he will let active DACA cardholders remain in the U.S. until their work permits expire, allowing him to fulfill his campaign promise to terminate Obama’s signature initiative while also keeping his inauguration pledge to “show great heart” to the young immigrants in the program.

In Baltimore, Mayor Catherine Pugh and Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz have joined more than 100 civic leaders across the country in a Cities for Action campaign calling for President Trump to continue the program until a legislative solution is found.

“In Baltimore County, we are embracing the children who came here as youngsters, grew up as Americans, and are now contributing to the American dream,” Kamenetz said in a letter to the president. “We urge the President to continue our country’s support of America’s Dreamers.”

A September 2016 report by the Migration Policy Institute recorded approximately 17,000 DACA participants in Maryland. Catalina Rodriguez-Lima, director of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant and Multicultural Affairs (MIMA), says that there are currently 34,000 eligible DACA applicants waiting for entry to the program if it is not terminated.

“Our role in the mayor’s office is to use her platform to urge the president to continue DACA,” she said. “For us, it doesn’t only go against our most resilient professionals and students, it’s also an attack on our economy. A lot of these people have bought homes, go to school, are nurses, are lawyers, are business owners—they create jobs.”

All current participants of DACA have already been subjected to extensive background checks and pay income taxes. Without them, the economy would lose more than $460 billion from the national GDP and more than $24 billion from Social Security and Medicare contributions.

Hundreds of national business leaders—including Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and nearly 400 other companies—have also signed an open letter to Trump calling for him to preserve the program. 

“Unless we act now to preserve the DACA program, all 780,000 hardworking young people will lose their ability to work legally in this country, and every one of them will be at immediate risk of deportation,” the executives wrote. “With them, we grow and create jobs. They are part of why we will continue to have a global competitive advantage.”

“Trump must end DACA,” wrote the editors of the National Review. “If we are going to amnesty an entire class of people, it should obviously be done through the democratic process and, in our view, happen only in exchange for reforms to the immigration system. DACA contravenes the elementary principle that the legislative branch ought to pass laws and the executive branch ought to enforce them.” 

As the country awaits the president’s decision, Rodriguez-Lima and MIMA are encouraging local DACA cardholders to be proactive in the event that the program is suspended. She recommends applying for other immigration release programs besides DACA and consulting with legal professionals. 

“My hope is that if the program is terminated, congress can come together to develop a solution for these students who were brought to this country not knowing they were undocumented,” she said. “They shouldn’t be punished but accepted. The U.S. is the only home they’ve ever known.”