Imagine that one day everything held dear to you was ripped away. Your driver’s license, your friends, your education, your family, your house and even the country you have known since birth, all gone. This is soon to be the unfortunate reality of almost 800,000 participants in the DACA program.
The DACA program, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, was an executive order of former President Barack Obama to protect undocumented children, who had been brought over by their parents, from deportation. Only those who had been brought to the U.S. before their sixteenth birthday, were under the age of thirty-one, had lived in the U.S since June of 2007, were in the process of or have already obtained a high school diploma and never committed a serious crime could apply. Even with these stipulations approximately 1.1 million people were eligible, but only around 800,000 applicants were accepted. In fact, many potential DACA participants and applicants were scared of the government, potentially being deported and exposing their loved ones for deportation. Now their worst nightmare is about to come true.
President Donald Trump, in his usual professional manner of tweeting essential policy changes, recently announced via Twitter that the DACA program was ending. Applications will no longer be accepted and before the policy’s expiration on March 5 of the upcoming year, DACA is supposed to be replaced by Congress.
With the questionable future and unfortunate imminent demise of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the fate of about 800,000 young people in the United States hangs in the balance. Without documentation that they will lose with the end of DACA, they cannot drive, go to school, obtain employment (that is not under the table), to name a few, and are in constant fear of being sent to a country where they have nothing. More than half of DACA recipients came to this country under the age of six, and they may soon be deported a country they don’t even remember. Their lives are here, in America, where they are an essential part of the fabric of this country.
Immigrants and their descendents make up a huge portion of the American population. Their contributions are invaluable, innumerable and part of our history. DACA participants and other undocumented immigrants are just as valuable and deserve the opportunity to take advantage of what our ancestors took advantage of. They deserve to be able to make a difference and to better themselves for the success of their family and future generations, and to contribute to society instead of being forced to hide in the shadows. The idea that it is 2017 and we are on the verge of expelling people who came to the U.S. as children is abhorrent.
The good news, is that people are fighting back. There have been protests across the country, and fifteen states and the District of Columbia, are suing the Trump Administration over DACA, saying that it violated due process and equal protection, and that the states’ economies will be affected negatively.
There is still hope that DACA will be saved, but hope is not good enough. If you want to protect your potential classmate, neighbor, friend or fellow human being it is necessary to take action. DACA participants have one month to come up with $495 to pay for their application renewal before applications will not be accepted. If you can give anything at all try and donate to GoFundMe pages. However, there are plenty of free things you can do as well. Call, tweet and email your representatives. Tell them that you want them to protect DACA. The Dream Act Tool Kit has made of list of politicians and their phone numbers that can be convinced to vote to protect DACA, and whoismyrepresentative.com allows you to easily search and find the people who represent you and their phone numbers. This means that you be part of history, and you can make a difference without getting out of bed, which is something we can all get behind.