“At a time when racism has been made fashionable by those who walk the corridors of power, What Happens to a Dream Deferred takes a courageous stand in defense of the American Dream.”

John Valadez, Peabody Award winning filmmaker (Latino Americans/PBS)

What Happens To A Dream Deferred is an intimate portrait of a day in the life of two DACA recipients, José Adrián Badillo Carlos and Osvaldo Sandoval, graduate students at Michigan State University whose lives were thrown into limbo after the Trump Administration rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on September 5, 2017.

Facing an uncertain future and the prospect of returning to an undocumented life in the shadows, José and Osvaldo struggle to complete their Ph.D. degrees while maintaining a quiet dignity amid adversity and national debates over immigration.

The first cinematic treatment of those affected by the decision to rescind the DACA program, the film slows down time and invites viewers to take a few steps in the shoes of those whose dreams have been deferred by a decision that affects nearly 800,000 DREAMers.

Shot in Spanish and English, it presents José and Osvaldo as they are both at work and at home with their families: two normal people who move between the different languages and worlds that have shaped their identities like the millions of immigrant children and teenagers brought to the United States before them.

In Spanish and English with Subtitles/12 min