DACA Rescission and Ontological Security: Anticipatory and Ambiguous Loss Among Undocumented Young Adults.

Whereas the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program allowed more than 800,000 beneficiaries to experience expanded educational and work opportunities, along with the emotional reassurance of knowing that they would not be, the precarity of this program was evidenced under the new Presidential administration when its rescission was announced in September 2017. Using the theoretical framework of ontological security, we analyze in-depth interviews with DACA recipients who currently live in Florida (current draft based on a subsample 16 of out of a larger sample) to explore how the change in policy affected their feelings of security and loss. Preliminary findings indicate that the election of President Trump initiated a period of anticipatory loss in which immigrants were managing the uncertainty of their fate. The rescission itself represented a trauma to them, resulting in ambiguous loss as young adults find themselves in a state of limbo and engage in emotion management to mitigate the loss of ontological security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]