Iowa’s ‘documented dreamers’ deserve permanent legal status in the United States

Iowa U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks this month announced bipartisan federal legislation to offer permanent legal status to young people who were legally brought to the country as children.

The America’s Children Act seeks to fix a troubling disparity in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA. The Obama-era policy reinstated by President Joe Biden is only open to undocumented “dreamers,” who were brought to the country illegally. Those who have maintained legal status are excluded under current policy, which the new legislation would correct.

The United States is home to an estimated 200,000 so-called “documented dreamers,” who are children of visa holders covered by their parents’ legal status until they age out of the system.

Immigrants and their children are some of America’s best and brightest. It is unthinkably foolish to invest in their educations for more than a decade and then force them to either self-deport or live illegally in the United States.

As many as 2,000 of them live in Iowa. One of them is Pareen Mhatre, a 21-year-old University of Iowa student whose story was recently reported by The Gazette’s James Lynch. Mhatre came to this country legally as an infant more than two decades ago, when her parents moved from India to study and work.

She’s a biomedical engineering student who hopes to put her talents to use in the United States building medical devices — if we allow her to stay.

“Having lived in this country for most of my life, I feel American in every way. … I have attended kindergarten through high school in the Iowa City Community School District, and now I am in my third year of college at University of Iowa. My roots are here in Iowa. I have been brought up as a Midwestern American,” Mhatre said in testimony to a U.S. House committee in April.

“While I am a citizen of India on paper, it is a country that I do not know. I am foreign when I visit because I feel like an Iowan and American at heart.”

Mhatre and her family have done everything right, “following laws meticulously and maintaining stacks of legal documentation at all times,” as she put it. For that, she faces the loss of her legal status and could be forced to leave the only country she’s ever called home.

It’s one of the many signs that our immigration system is badly broken, burdened by nonsensical bureaucracy and yearslong backlogs. In many cases legal status is granted by lottery, literally leaving the nation’s future up to chance.

Miller-Meeks’ America’s Children Act, introduced with one of her fellow Republicans and two Democrats, would create a new category of permanent legal residency for documented dreamers who meet certain criteria, and might even apply to some who have already self-deported. The bill also would provide some stability to people whose immigration applications are working through the lengthy approval process.

“We must ensure that our immigration system protects those who come here legally and supports them as they work to contribute to and improve our country. … These students grew up here, attended school here, and want to continue to make our country a better place. I am proud to support them,” Miller-Meeks said in a news release.

This is a narrowly focused proposal, not the kind of comprehensive immigration reform we need to boost legal immigration and in turn undercut illegal immigration. The bill would only codify the obvious — that legal immigrants who have lived here since infancy should be allowed to stay and contribute to our society.

Immigrants and their children are some of America’s best and brightest. It is unthinkably foolish to invest in their educations for more than a decade and then force them to either self-deport or live illegally in the United States.

All peaceful humans deserve a path to legal residency in the United States, but it is an especially damning reflection on our country that we so far haven’t even figured out a way to keep the educated and highly productive people who have lived here almost all their lives.

(319) 308-8262; editorial@thegazette.com