For Dreamers, 2021 was the year that promised some permanent relief from their fragile immigration status—but failed to deliver. President Biden can ensure 2022 is different.

Candidate Joe Biden promised in his final debate with Donald Trump in October 2020 that if he was elected president, Dreamers, those brought to the U.S. without permission by their parents when they were children, would be “immediately certified again to be able to stay in this country and be put on a path to citizenship.” But President Biden has not been able to deliver on that promise, and it is unclear that he ever will. As a result, Dreamers are in the most precarious position they have experienced since the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was initiated in 2012.

Much of the fault lies with Congress, which is the only body that can enact permanent protection and grant access to citizenship to the approximately 1.1 million eligible young people who came here illegally prior to 2012. But the administration is not blameless either. Democrats control both houses of Congress and the presidency—as they did from 2009-2011—but immigration reform has not proven a high enough priority for them to use the capital it would take to pass relief for Dreamers.

Don’t get me wrong, Republicans are the biggest stumbling block. But Democrats haven’t figured out how to use their leverage effectively, nor have they been willing to strike a compromise that might win over some GOP votes. Instead, Democrats gambled that they could attach a much broader immigration package to the Build Back Better bill, then pass the whole thing under the reconciliation process requiring a simple majority in both houses. But there were obvious problems to that approach. The Senate parliamentarian has ruled three times—most recently on December 16—that attaching the broad proposal to the Senate’s version of BBB doesn’t pass muster.