Trump vs. 800,000: Repealing DACA

DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is a program that was created under President Obama in 2012. The program DACA does not provide anyone with legal status, nor does it even set them on a fast track to it. Deferred action, and more specifically pertaining to children, is a blanket protection against deportation for those brought to the US by parents. The requirements to qualify for DACA were to have been brought as a child under 15 before 2007, to have been under the age of 31 in 2012, to have had a spotless record, and be enrolled in high school or to have a high school diploma. Though there are many hoops to jump through for this two-year renewable protection against deportation, 800,000 Dreamers are still protected. Although no longer children, these 16 to 35-year-olds have been holding down jobs and attending school, even beyond the required high school.The program was a result of Obama’s unsettling frustration as he tediously watched a great injustice unfold. While Congress had been stalling on the DREAM Act since it was introduced in 2001, millions of people’s hope for legal status was being toyed with. It would be unimaginably unfair to see these Dreamers at serious risks of deportation after skeptically having come out of the shadows in order to live the normal American life with a job, driver’s license, and contributions to taxes.

Unfortunately, the oxymoron of “tax paying freeloaders” has not come even close to sticking to President Trump as he has recently announced his decision end the program in March, 2018. With just a quick glance at the government’s platform for DACA, the new change in its policy has been made very clear, as it states that no Dreamers are being accepted into the program (effective September 5th, 2017). Not only are these Dreamers being treated with extreme injustice because of their courage to publicly address their legal status, but they are also being scrutinized for identifying with their country of origin. These Dreamers are young adults who have been raised in the American culture. These Dreamers cannot imagine a life in a country as foreign to them as they are to the ignorant American. The truth is, by threatening these young Dreamers who have lived most of their lives in America, Trump is not solving any immigration issues that he claims to be fixing; he is ridding the nation of people who not only identify as Americans but also have a right to reside here.

For Trump to say that these “illegal aliens” are a threat to our nation is such a ridiculous claim that can be equated to saying that anyone raised in the United States needs to be deported. His reasoning is shallowly based on his ignorance, prejudice and morally negligible immigration documents of over eight hundred thousand Americans. Trump's latest actions against the Dreamer’s DACA program reveals the true colors of how alt-rightly driven his agenda really is. He has made it clear in the past that he is adamantly anti-immigration, but his latest attacks on the youth Dreamers reveal the extremity of injustice that he chooses to rule by.

https://www.uscis.gov/archive/consideration-deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/us/politics/trump-daca-dreamers-immigration.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/04/politics/daca-dreamers-immigration-program/index.html

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/31/16226934/daca-trump-dreamers-immigration

Image Source: https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-09-05/silicon-valley-takes-stand-against-president-trumps-daca-decision

#DACA #Trump