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Stepping Up to Help DACA Recipients

Posted on Mar 19 2018

When Kara Lynum speaks, people listen! Not only do they listen: they donated more than $30,000 to pay DACA renewal fees in just one month.

Kara started with an MPR interview, talking about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) after a federal judge’s order allowed renewal applications. “Some people are scrambling now who don’t have $495 sitting in the bank,” she told Tom Weber on January 16.

Listeners responded, with one person offering to pay the filing fee for “at least one person, maybe two.” That donor paid the filing fee for one of Kara’s clients, a single mom with a two-year-old U.S. citizen child. That client wrote the thank you note pictured above.

DACA protection from deportation and permission to work lasts for only two years at a time. Then each recipient has to file for a renewal. While two federal judges have ordered the Trump administration to accept renewal applications, no one knows how long those court orders will stay in effect, and Congress still hasn’t done anything to help DACA recipients. All of that makes renewal applications crucial.

Kara tweeted out the thank you note (above) and her response:

Kara’s tweets started a wave of support. She contacted the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota to set up a way to accept the donations and distribute them to people who needed help paying the DACA renewal fee. A friend of Kara’s set up a Venmo account to accept smaller donations and add them up. No stranger to activism, Kara was named as a 2016 Attorney of the Year by Minnesota Lawyer magazine, in part for her four volunteer trips to represent detained migrants, “driving some 1,300 miles south each time to put in 12-hour days working pro bono with migrant women and children languishing in detention centers in Texas and New Mexico.” She was also named one of four recipients of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota’s 2015 National Advocate of the Year award. In 2017, City Page lauded her work at the airport, among the volunteer attorneys who showed up to help people through the chaos that followed the first Trump travel ban.

Thanks to Kara Lynum and to all those who have stepped up to help DACA recipients during this difficult time. Want to donate?

ILCM has set up a way to donate to pay filing fees for Dreamers renewing their DACA status. Because of the complexities of tracking, ILCM can accept DACA fee donations only in the amounts of $495 (full fee) or $247.50 (half a fee). To donate, start here. Check the line for “other one-time contribution,” and fill in $495.00 or $247.50. Then click on “continue” at the bottom of the page. On the next page, write in “DACA filing fee” in the acknowledgement box. Donations for DACA fees are NOT tax-deductible. Thank you for supporting Dreamers!