As Biden narrows focus, 'Dreamers' try to stay optimistic
LOS ANGELES — Maria Lopez was skeptical when President-elect Joe Biden announced early in the year that he would send a groundbreaking legislative package to Congress that would overhaul U.S. immigration policy and offer a pathway to citizenship for 11 million people, including herself and her parents.
Lopez, 31, a Mexican immigrant who lives in San Jose and works at a local university, is a recipient of DACA, the Obama-era executive action that allows approximately 700,000 people living illegally in the United States, after being brought here as children, to receive a renewable two-year reprieve from deportation and become eligible for a work permit. Across three presidential administrations, so-called Dreamers — the greatest number of whom live in California — have waited for the U.S. government to grant them permanent residency.
Still, on a desert
