Earlier this week, Trump made Attorney General Jeff Sessions announce that his administration would “compassionately” phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA. After months of promising “Dreamers” not to worry, Trump decided to appease conservatives who support his tough stance on immigration—and falsely imply Dreamers are taking their jobs.
The program now leaves about 800,000 undocumented young adults, who were brought to the U.S. by their parents, at risk of being deported to a country they don’t know. While the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services—the agency in charge of DACA—says it won’t proactively provide immigration agents with a list of names and addresses of DACA participants, if asked, they will provide immigration officers with information.
Now Dreamers—95 percent of whom are currently working or in school, 54 percent who bought their first car and 12 percent who bought their first home and who contribute $2 billion in local and state taxes—are forced to suffer the consequences of actions they didn’t make. These are young adults who have pushed through in the face of adversity in order to become active members of their communities, of their country and their country’s economy. In the words of Former President Obama “Dreamers are Americans in their hearts, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper.”
