Immigration will be a touchstone issue in next year’s elections, if not a driving issue in American politics for the next two decades. As a pretext, the U.S. Supreme Court in the spring will render an opinion on another policy of President Trump’s that takes on the issue, again, with toughness over compassion.

In 2012, President Obama told undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children to step into the bureaucratic light, to give their names and promise to be good members of the workforce and stay in school. After the Dream Act couldn’t get through a divided Congress, Obama signed an executive order to create the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The Supreme Court will determine whether Trump can render the deal between immigrants and the government null and void. If he wins, Dreamers face deportation to a country many don’t remember. It’s a life sentence fought on technical grounds.

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Erik Gamboa didn’t trust it to begin with. He waited a year to step out of the shadows, as he described it, to sign up to be a Dreamer. At 37, now, he cleared the bar on age by just two months.

“It’s been a life changer,” he said of DACA.

Gamboa’s family landed in California from Mexico when he was a year old, then came to Colorado when he was 12.

When he graduated from Aurora Central High School, out-of-state tuition for a noncitizen put the cost of college out of his family’s reach. He wanted to join the Navy but he was daunted by the bureaucratic challenges of getting in the U.S. military as a noncitizen, so another pathway was a dead end.

Gamboa operates his family’s painting and remodeling company, which, with papers, he’s grown to include buying and selling real estate.

That’s well and good, but having a daughter was “the best thing that ever happened to me,” Gamboa said. She’s 16, and they’re very close. Because he has a driver’s license now, they can fly together to Chicago, New York and San Francisco, Gamboa said, rattling off their adventures.

“When Donald Trump got elected, I had the conversation with her about the possibility of me being deported, and what that would mean for us, and how if I’m not around I’ll still always be there for her,” Gamboa said. “It’s a hard conversation to have, but it’s the reality of things.”

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DACA is about real lives and real livelihoods, but it’s also really about politics.

Latino voters are an emerging bloc that both parties should covet. Republicans who side with Trump are betting that those who came here legally want everyone else to play by the same rules.

Immigration, by no means, is the only issue that sways any voter, but mishandling it could set either party back for a generation.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis contends DACA, despite its broad public and political support, is on life support solely because President Trump and his conservative base’s “relentless attempts” to kill it and to “set us against one another.”

“We worry about the impact ending DACA would have on the economy of our state and the American lives who are affected,” he said. “It’s unconscionable that 15,000 fellow Coloradans – our families, our friends, our neighbors – could be uprooted from their jobs, from their schools, from their communities and deported to a country they don’t even remember.”

Dreamers in Colorado have a champion in the governor’s office, as Republicans propose a ballot measure next year to ensure undocumented immigrants are never granted voting rights in local elections. Initiative 76 is part of a national campaign that’s living in a political powder keg and giving off sparks.

More the 700,000 immigrants signed up for DACA nationwide. Their numbers in Colorado amount to more than all the living souls in Steamboat Springs.

“They are in all ways Americans, and that’s a fact Congress will ultimately recognize,” Polis said.

In Congress, Polis was one of the Democrats who urged the president go press ahead with DACA. He co-sponsored the Dream Act and legislation to provide assistance to children facing deportation. His congressional staff included an immigration attorney for casework in the 2nd Congressional District.

As governor, Polis already has signed legislation to allow Dreamers to qualify for college financial aid. Polis appointed the first Dreamer ever to a state board, Marissa Molina, who serves on board at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

“Representation matters,” Polis explained. “Of course we should treat our DACA recipients as the de facto Americans they already are, as we wait for Congress to someday finally update their ability to someday take their place alongside their fellow Americans.”

He campaigned on a “Colorado for all,” and he said Dreamers are included. 

“These are kids that your kids and my kids grew up with. They’re cheerleaders on the football team, in school plays, they’re friends, they’re dates, they’re just as American as any other Coloradan,” the governor said.

In the meantime, there’s Trump.

“Everyone will suffer if the Trump administration is allowed to start rounding up Dreamers for deportation,” the governor said.