DACA Policy for Undocumented Immigrants Updated and Expanded in the Form of Obama Executive Action

Source: cis.org

President Obama's Nov. 20 executive action on illegal immigration promises to grant approximately four to five million undocumented immigrants greater rights and protections against deportation, with a goal of "deporting felons not families." This action, although seemingly radical to conservatives, is actually an expansion of DACA, or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, implemented by the Obama administration in June 2012.

For the past two years, DACA has allowed undocumented young adults to avoid deportation and obtain a work permit and temporary Social Security number, both renewable every two years. Specifically, the program's criteria for applying have been:

• arrival in the United States before the applicant turned 16
• living continuously in the United States since July 15, 2007
• under age 31 on June 15, 2012
• enrolled in a high school or GED program or have earned the equivalent of a high school diploma
• never convicted of any felony or serious misdemeanor

Source: countable.us

Obama's new spin on the program, however, opens DACA to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country before turning 16 and grants three year work permits instead of two. It also establishes a Deferred Action for Parental Accountability program. DAPA opens up three year work permits and deferred deportation for parents of lawful permanent residents who have lived in the United States since Jan. 1, 2014. Additionally, it broadens the use of provisional waivers to include the spouses and children of lawful permanent residents.


Undocumented Immigrants Express Mixed Responses to the New Executive Action
The new inclusions and continued exclusions from the Deferred Action program are garnering mixed responses from undocumented immigrants and their allies. Those who now benefit from Deferred Action or whose family members are eligible are grateful. Others, such as Armando Ibanez of Los Angeles, worry that their families could be separated since some parents of DACA recipients are still not eligible. Some have already been affected. Yves Gomes, a student at the University of Maryland, has been separated from his parents, who are banned from reentering the country until 2019.

Additionally, some people feel that the tenets of Obama's executive action just don't reach far enough. Since the federal DREAM Act failed to be passed in 2010, DACA and the most recent executive action have been the only nationwide steps toward helping undocumented immigrants. Undocumented college students who qualify for neither DACA nor the DREAM Act, feel "invisible" and "left behind," explains Yvette Yerma, coordinator for Latino/a Student Involvement and Advocacy at the University of Maryland. Even those who benefit from DACA, however, are still disadvantaged compared to their legal peers.

The key to understanding the reach of DACA and its effect on undocumented persons is in the status that it grants. As explained in a study by Roberto Gonzales, Veronica Terriquez, and Stephen Ruszczyk, there is a difference between lawful status and lawful presence, and DACA only grants immigrants the latter. Dr. Irwin Morris, professor and chair of American Politics at the University of Maryland, explains the distinction, which is that lawful status confers access to financial aid, whereas lawful presence merely protects a person from deportation.

Applying for lawful status is difficult due to the bureaucratic process and the dangers and realities that undocumented immigrants face, including financial constraints and past legal records. Yet, the very fact that DACA exists and that the Obama administration plans to put into effect even more measures to help undocumented immigrants' plight shows that tides may be turning in the right direction.

Skeptics Question the Actual Reach of DACA
Although the overall picture for undocumented immigrants is undoubtedly improving, the extent of DACA's impact is still debatable. First of all, its age and residence date criteria were decided completely arbitrarily, excluding a large subsection of the undocumented population. Clearly, more comprehensive legislation to aid undocumented immigrants is needed. But, Dr. Morris suggests, such legislation is probably not forthcoming, despite all the hope generated by the president's executive action.

Secondly, DACA is limited not only in its reach to all undocumented immigrants, but also toward those it deems eligible for lawful status. It is estimated that only 61 percent of those persons eligible for DACA actually applied in its first year. Meanwhile, USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) reports approving over 98 percent of applications, so on the bureaucratic side at least, the program seems to be adequately matching the demand by applicants. Why this disparity? Why don't more qualified young undocumented immigrants apply?

Alyssa18

A classmate shares his plans for Thanksgiving

Dr. Vedran Lekic Wins Packard Fellowship for Studies in Seismology

(1) In recognition of his efforts to integrate computer science and geological studies, Vedran Lekic joined the ranks of 17 other early career U.S. scientists and engineers who were awarded a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering last week.

(4) Lekic is now one of five alumni faculty members who have received the award while at this university, and he will be given access to unrestricted funds of $875,000 over a five-year period to support his extensive research on Earth’s inner structure.

(9) “The great thing about this fellowship is its flexibility to go chase a really good idea to wherever it leads,” said Orr, a Stanford University professor. “It is an incredibly valuable fund and gives the researchers an opportunity to take off with a good idea instead of waiting a year or more for federal money.”

(14) Lekic has received several other early career awards besides the Packard Fellowship.

(15) But now that a large fund has been granted to his work, he hopes to spend more time plotting the seismic information in graphs and models so that he may better understand the Earth, Lekic said.

Past Work Analyzes Movement and Evolution of Continental Plates

(2) Lekic has already used the seismic information to investigate why and how the crust moves over the Earth’s mantle. As of now, the deepest any machine has been able to dig was about 12 kilometers into the Earth’s crust, a minuscle fracture of the roughly 6,730 kilometers it takes to get to the Earth’s core. Using the seismic information helps geologists see the shapes and sizes of the Earth’s layers.

(18) As a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkley, Lekic formulated higher-resolution images of the Earth’s mantle structure, stemming from his creation of a global seismic velocity model. Not only is the model able to give geologists a better understanding of plate tectonics, but it also helps explain the movement of continental plates and their evolution, Lekic said.

(10) Lekic’s research is based on ground vibration recordings, which he and his students use to detect the scattering of seismic waves across the North American tectonic plate. In conjunction with the National Science Foundation’s EarthScope Facility network, the data is collected from the 49 states and Puerto Rico and makes up about 3.8 million square miles, Lekic said.

With McDonough, Lekic Hopes to Construct a New, Deeper Model of the Earth's Plates

(7) Nearly 2 million data lines fill the screen of Lekic’s computer every day, each representing seismic waves that are detected from of the more than 1,700 seismic stations around the U.S.

(17) Lekic and McDonough are attempting to harness that energy to create another way to build a model of the Earth.

(16) “We are both interested in the energy that moves the tectonic plates and creates the magnetic shield around the planet,” geology professor William McDonough said.

(5) From this data, Lekic is creating a map that will not only cover all 48 contiguous states, Alaska and Puerto Rico, but also dive deep into the Earth’s crust and core.

(13) “What we do is comparable to how an ultrasound lets us see through our bodies,” Lekic said. “But this lets us see through the Earth.”

Beyond Plate Tectonics, Lekic Works with Subatomic "Neutrino" Particles

(3) Other than his seismology research contributions, Lekic is also a forerunner in the new geological field of neutrino geoscience.

(6) Neutrinos are a type of electrically neutral subatomic particle that are created during radioactive decay or some kinds of nuclear reactions. The particle, which was only discovered geologically in 2005 and physically detected for the first time last year, moves through every kind of object, McDonough said.

(11) “It sounds magical; it’s like a particle that exists but you can’t really see,” Lekic said of neutrinos.

Learn Basic Hangul—The Korean Alphabet is Simpler than You Might Think

Hangul (한글) is the alphabet of the Korean language. It is surprisingly simple and logical, making it easy to learn. Just like our alphabet, it comprises of vowels and consonants—24 basic unit characters total. The shapes of the characters are based on the biological phonetics behind each of the sounds used in Korean speech.

Vowels and Consonants Are Slight Variations on Each Other

Each of the basic vowels of Hangul comes in two forms: one is just the vowel sound on its own, while the other begins with a “y” sound. For example, “a” is written “아” and “ya” is denoted by “야.” The other basic vowels represent “eo,” “yeo,” “o,” “yo,” “u,” “yu,” “i,” and “eu.”

listen to ‘Korean vowels’ on audioBoom

The consonants also comprise of base forms and their more strongly-emphasized modifications. For instance, ᄀ represents a hard “g” sound, but add an extra line to the character, and it becomes ᄏ, a “k” sound. ᄃ (“d”) also becomes ᄐ (“t”), and ᄇ (“b”) becomes ᄑ (“p”). ᄉ (“s”) can be modified to ᄌ (“j”), which can further become ᄎ (“ch”). Finally, add some air behind the ᄋ (a placeholder when it appears at the beginning of a syllable; in other words, it represents an absence of initial consonant sound) and you get ᄒ (“h”).

listen to ‘Korean consonants’ on audioBoom

Putting it All Together: Letters Make Syllables Make Words

Korean words are written syllable by syllable. A single syllable contains at least an initial consonant and a vowel following it, and sometimes one or two ending consonants after the vowel. Each syllable is read left to right and then top to bottom. Syllables are then strung together into words, which are themselves read left to right and then top to bottom, just like in English. For example, 안녕, which means "hi," is read an-nyeong. Similarly, the word for "forty," 마흔, is read ma-heun.

With Korean pop culture's growing importance in the international spotlight, being able to recognize and even decipher Hangul can be a useful skill to learn, and fun to boot. Sites like this Korean keyboard allow leisure language aficionados to play with the Korean language on their own time and in an interactive, creative way.

News outlets talk up technologies that personalize by tracking your location

While people have long taken psychological control of their chaotic environment through the escape of books or music players, for example, cell phones present a new threat to the distinction between public and private spaces. A December 2010 study followed "four months of news from major world and US [periodicals] addressing location-based services (LBS)" in order to determine the prevailing media opinion toward personalized technology regarding benefits versus security risks. The main privacy concern that news articles mention is the possibility of having one's location available to "unknown parties," since this would constitute a loss of control over one's own whereabouts. Yet, the tradeoff for that risk is users' increased control over their "interaction with public spaces." The new LBS technologies are changing the way that consumers understand their privacy and control in relation to their surroundings. The three embodiments of "location awareness" that the researchers identified in their news subjects were advertising/marketing, social networking, and safety and security. Additionally, the two themes that cropped up in relation to LBS technologies were loss-of-privacy concerns and control/personalization of public spaces. Just as many news outlets treated the privacy issue of LBS positively as neutrally and negatively combined. Meanwhile, 25 of those sampled spoke positively about LBS's control aspects in contrast to 3 neutrally and 3 negatively. Security was less discussed in relation to both privacy and control, with only 5 and 4 news sources covering them, respectively. However, the two combinations most considered were control in marketing and advertising, and privacy in social networking, with 16 instances each. Privacy in advertising and control in social networking were the next most important topics, garnering the attention of 10 and 12 news stories, respectively.

Results of a Towson University study show a surprising dearth of technology exploitation among college students