Young Immigrants Who Own Homes Prepare To Unload Investment If DACA Ends

[link to www.wbur.org]

"Should we sell the house, or walk away from the mortgage?"

Those are questions that thousands of young immigrants are now asking themselves after they received permission to stay in the U.S. under an Obama-era program.

Back in September, President Trump said he was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. He called former President Obama's executive order unconstitutional, and now nearly 800,000 DACA recipients may have to leave the country if Congress can't come up with a permanent solution.

For people like Cristian Mendoza, answers are not easy to come by.

"Honestly, I don't know," says Mendoza, 30, in the living room of a home he bought for his parents in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. "Our last resort is try to sell it."

Cristian, a dietitian, bought the three-bedroom home two years ago with his younger sister, Laura. They paid just under $400,000 and made a $20,000 down payment. Cristian had been saving up to buy a home since high school.

Without DACA, buying it would have been much more difficult.

"It made it 100 times easier," he says.

That's because DACA gives young immigrants permission to work and to get better-paying jobs.