The deadline for the “Dreamers” is fast approaching. On March 6, the Trump administration plans to terminate the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects from deportation people who were brought here as children and are living in the country illegally.

Demographic estimates show the Upper Valley’s population may be about 5 percent foreign-born, less than half the rate for the country and one-fifth that of California. According to the respected Pew Research Center, some 10,000 people were living in New Hampshire illegally in 2014, and fewer than 5,000 in Vermont. The total number in the Upper Valley might be several hundred. The number of Dreamers, who can be as young as pre-teenagers and as old as the mid-30s, might be several dozen.

Upper Valley advocates for those who are living in the country without legal permission, including the Dreamers, are reluctant to share details about their numbers here for fear that doing so might call unwanted attention to them and lead to more immigration enforcement efforts. Kate Semple Barta, an immigration attorney in Lyme, said the population in the Upper Valley is “probably consistent with what we see in semi-urban areas.”

Given those small numbers, the effect on the Upper Valley of the various immigration reform efforts now underway in Washington, D.C., can be difficult to gauge. But that’s not to say the impact is inconsequential.

Reform Efforts Fall Short

On Jan. 25, the White House issued a brief “framework” for a package of legislative amendments to the current law. In his State of the Union address on Jan. 30, President Donald Trump said the package “will create a safe, modern and lawful immigration system.”

Trump’s one-page framework touches on some long-standing concerns while passing over others. It focuses on four areas of policy, which the White House is now calling “four pillars”:

Protection of the Dreamers.

Merit-based or family reunification criteria for awarding green cards for permanent residency.

The immigration lottery.

Border security.

On Thursday, the Senate voted down a bill offered by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that mirrored the president’s proposal. The 39 votes in favor fell well short of the 60 needed to advance the measure. A bipartisan measure also was defeated, but more narrowly.

Coincidentally, a Harvard-Harris poll, conducted Jan. 17-19, asked 980 registered voters about an immigration reform package that included the elements in Trump’s framework. Voters were asked, “Would you favor or oppose a congressional deal that gives undocumented immigrants brought here by their parents work permits and a path to citizenship in exchange for increasing merit preference over preference for relatives, eliminating the diversity visa lottery, and funding barrier security on the U.S.-Mexico border?”

Every demographic and category of political leaning supported this deal by a majority of at least 60 percent. Liberals liked it by 63 percent; conservatives by 68 percent. Seventy-seven percent said yes to Dreamer access to citizenship; even 64 percent of conservatives agreed.

If a Deal Is Reached

If Congress eventually reaches an agreement that protects the Dreamers, which Democratic lawmakers have made a priority, the protections will likely be expanded to cover more people than those who have registered to date. In the Upper Valley, the legal and social service communities will likely make an effort to contact all potential candidates to make sure they begin the process to gain legal status.

If the agreement reflects the Trump initiative, it also would give preference to immigrants with a high level of formal education and skills. Here, too, the Harvard-Harris poll reveals broad support, with 65 percent in favor of giving more weight to education and skills over family reunification (68 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats). Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., proposed in early 2017 a quantitative point scoring system that would make it practically impossible for someone with less than a college degree to obtain a green card.

But such a merit-based system can be problematic, both in the Upper Valley and the country as a whole. The demand for immigrant workers, locally and nationally, is very strong at both the upper end of the economic spectrum, including medical professionals, computer scientists and engineers, and at the lower end, including personal caregivers, health aides and farm workers.

Will Sendek, with Migrant Justice in Burlington, estimates that 90 percent of the hired workforce in the region’s dairy industry is composed of immigrants, and many of them are likely in the country without authorization.

‘Chain Migration,’ the Lottery And the Wall

The Trump administration has signaled that it wants to reduce by about 40 percent what it terms “chain migration” — the process by which citizens and lawful permanent residents of the United States are allowed to sponsor relatives beyond their immediate family to immigrate here. Supporters of the Trump framework say the process is a security threat. Opponents argue that immigrants and members of their extended families have come to this country as a unit since its founding, and further, those extended families for the basis of important support networks for immigrants.

The administration also would kill the Diversity Visa Lottery Program, which allows up to 50,000 immigrants a year from countries with lower levels of immigration to the U.S. The lottery system is unpopular, according to the Harvard-Harris poll, with only 32 percent of respondents in favor and 68 percent opposed. The overall number of immigrants allowed by the lottery is so small, however, that eliminating it likely will have no effect on the Upper Valley.

The administration’s toughest talk is over enforcement of the border with Mexico, which it proposes to beef up. However, many of the people living in the Upper Valley without legal permission likely came to the country on a temporary visa and overstayed, rather than entering the country illegally from Mexico. Further, a border wall with Mexico will not address those illegally crossing the country’s border with Canada, which is about a 90-minute drive from the core of the Upper Valley.

The Trump administration’s proposed framework does not address most of the 11 million living in the country illegally. It does not address refugees, whose numbers have already declined in Vermont and New Hampshire. Nor does it mention the current system of temporary work visas, on which Upper Valley employers, including seasonal farms, depend.

As of Thursday, Washington remained in gridlock in its attempts to resolve the immigration issue.

Peter Rousmaniere is a writer in Woodstock. His email address is pfr@rousmaniere.com. He blogs about immigration issues at www.workingimmigrants.com.