Campaign Action
The Washingon Post reports the future of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an Obama-era program that allows 800,000 immigrant youth to work legally and live free from the fear of deportation, remains perilous. “If Trump decides to end the successful DACA program” within the next few weeks as has been indicated, said Marilena Hincapié of the National Immigration Law Center, “he would be betraying the young immigrants he reassured did not have anything to worry about and claimed to have a 'heart' for”:
Top officials at the Department of Homeland Security met this week to review the status of a deferred-action program for illegal immigrants that could face a legal challenge from Texas next month, raising fears among advocates that President Trump could choose to eliminate it.
Acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke and Thomas Homan, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, were among those who gathered Monday to deliberate over the future of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), according to an agency official with knowledge of the meeting.
“Immigrant youth fought to create the DACA program and we will fight like hell to defend it,” said immigrant youth leader Greisa Martinez with United We Dream in response to the report. “After Charlottesville, the fate of DACA will be the first major policy test of the Trump Administration.”
Currently, there’s no court decision ordering Trump to shut down DACA. Challenges to DACA’s constitutionality have failed in the past. Trump, who previously said that "we are gonna deal with with DACA with heart,” can continue the program if he chooses. So let’s be clear: if he ends DACA, or attempts to phase it out, he won’t be siding with the overwhelming majority of Americans—and 78 percent of Republicans—who support the program, but instead with white supremacists and degenerates inside and outside his government who want it to kill it for no reason but bigotry.
“It is time for all people to organize with fierce and unapologetic determination to counter the vicious hate being pushed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and white supremacists in the White House,” Martinez continued. “We will not be pushed back in the shadows because this is our home and we are #HereToStay.”
The fact is that ending DACA would have devastating consequences for not just the hundreds of thousands of immigrant youth who remember no other nation but this one as their home—the average Dreamer arrived here when her or she was just six years old—but for all of America. Ending DACA would tear communities apart and cost our economy hundreds of billions of dollars. DACA recipients are students, doctors, stay-at-home parents, artists, taxpaying business owners and professionals who contribute to their communities and to America.
This is their home, and to rip away protections promised to them by the federal government for five years now is downright cruel and a disgrace to our nation.
What this moment calls for is elected Republican leaders, particularly Paul Ryan, to decide which side of history they want to be on. Just this past year, Ryan told a frightened Dreamer that she shouldn’t have to worry about a deportation force. So will he and others side with permanent legislative relief like the 2017 DREAM Act and the 800,000 immigrant youth who embody the American Dream, or with white supremacists who fear the inevitable, changing face of America? To all those in Congress who condemned Trump’s horrific embrace of Nazis and white supremacists after Charlottesville, you put your words into action and support immigrant youth.
“Now is the moment for white people of conscience to unite with immigrant youth who are DACA beneficiaries, and give us the same fire, intensity, and commitment they’ve put into marching against racism and Trump,” said Cristina Jimenez, immigrant youth leader with United We Dream.
The moral answer has always been clear. DACA and immigrant youth should be here to stay. Take action to support DACA by going to DefendDACA.com today.