President Donald Trump and his administration announced their desire to bring an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals on Tuesday Sept. 5. DACA was originally created under Obama in 2012 and aims to offer safety to children who illegally immigrated to the United States. This decision puts thousands of individuals living in the U.S. at risk of being deportated.
In the past, DACA was an extremely successful way to keep immigrant children safe in the nation where they grew up. As of March, DACA had already protected “about 800,000 immigrants who were children when they arrived in the U.S. illegally,” according to NPR.
Trump eliminating DACA is yet another unacceptable display of the racially motivated policy for which his administration is known. The New York Times even points out that Trump used, “language of anti-immigrant activists,” when arguing against DACA, saying, “Those in the country illegally are lawbreakers who hurt native born Americans by usurping their jobs and pushing down wages.”
What Trump fails to acknowledge with this argument, however, is the fact that the immigrants protected by DACA have been here since they were children and many feel as though they are, to use Trump’s words, “native born Americans.” For most of these individuals, the U.S. is the only home they know. Sending child immigrants back to their home country would uproot their lives and in some cases even put them in severe danger.
After Trump’s announcement regarding DACA, many Americans were outraged and protested this decision. Geneseo, too, endorsed the continuation of the DACA program, noting how this change could affect our students. It is imperative during this time to continue to voice opposition to Trump’s prejudice policy and offer support to immigrants.