DACA deserves to stay

Staff, [email protected]

It seems as if it’s becoming a weekly occurrence that the Trump administration does something that scares us and divides us as a nation. Tuesday, Sept. 5 United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the deconstruction of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. This Obama lead program was put in place to protect young people who were brought into this country illegally as minors, deferring the deportation of young immigrants.

President Trump made many promises during his campaign trail into office. A lot of those promises were fear driven, used to create a reaction from the American people. He spoke on numerous occasions how he intended to deport illegal immigrants if elected.

Once elected many immigrants feared the worse, uneasy about what was looming as far as their resident status went. Roughly 8 months into his presidency Trump seemed to lighten his stance on ending the Obama driven program and eventually sending 800,000 DACA users away from their home. Unfortunately, not to anyone’s surprise, the President once again made the wrong choice on a monumental decision.

Former president Barack Obama was quick to respond to the decision made by Trump regarding the DACA program calling it “cruel” and “self-defeating.” He went on to say it was a cruel decision to target these young people for nothing they themselves did wrong. How can it ever seem appropriate to punish young people who had no input on a decision made by their parent’s wanting a better life for them and their family years earlier?

These current DACA users are students, business owners, military personnel and all around productive members of society. If the government tells these young people to ”go home”, where do we expect them to go? This is the only home most of them know.

We agree with Mr. Obama. Dreamers should not be threatened when they pose no threat to the rest of us.

The Contra Costa Community College District made it clear last year that they stand with their undocumented students when they declared our campus as a sanctuary university.

This was an amazing step in the right direction for students in the district. This year now more than ever we will have to do more and continue to stand with people affected by the current administrations divisive legislation.