Tucson Weekly: DREAMers Deferred

Marygrace Ghio found out she was undocumented when she was 13 years old.

“It was sort of shocking because I was at the age where everyone got their license and then they went off to college,” she said. “And when I found out, it was like, well, I guess I won’t be doing those things.”

Like many Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, Marygrace, who is now 20 years old, speaks perfect Spanish and English, with no trace of an accent in either.

She got DACA at 17 years old and started working right away.

DACA was created by an Obama policy directive in 2012. It allowed the children of undocumented immigrants whose parents brought them into the country at a young age, have lived in the U.S. for at least five years and don’t have a criminal record to live without fear of deportation and to work legally.

Since then, 800,000 young people across the country have joined the program. Several years after DACA was created, and following many other states, officials determined DACA recipients were in the country legally and therefore eligible to obtain a driver’s license and pay in-state tuition to college.

Read the full story from Tucson Weekly: “DREAMers Deferred”