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Waking up from a DREAM

Photo by Steve Rhodes

I would like to start by saying that I have no spoon in this messed up soup. I’m a legal immigrant that is here to get an education with all the benefits that come with it. I’m proud to share the ‘immigrant’ label with many people in this country and in many others, and less proud to share it with people that out of necessity or want chose to come to this country without jumping through the legal hoops.

However, today I want to talk about many illegal immigrants that didn’t choose to come here. That at a young age were stripped of their identity and raised on a lie: that this was their original home. Many of them grew up without knowing the truth, and many others probably didn’t know the truth a week ago.

In 2012, President Obama created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, to protect those that were of young age and had come to the US illegally. This program gives permits to more than 800,000 people to be able to work, study, and fulfill their roles in society. And earlier this week, an expiration date was put on it.

On Tuesday, September 5, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the program known as DACA would end in six months. No new applications would be accepted, and no permit expiring after March 6 would be renewed.

I will not defend DACA as it is, as I’m sure no court will, since it is a prime example of presidential overreach. I will not say that this is not justified, or that nobody could’ve seen it coming. After all, it was never amnesty.

But I will say that for an administration that praises immigrants and their contributions to society, at the same time that denounces illegal ones, to terminate a program that benefits the most sympathetic demographic of illegal immigrants is not the way to go. These people are hard-working “citizens” that go to school or college, pay taxes and fulfill important roles in our economy. Kids that are legal in every way but what matters most for our bureaucrats. That desperately needed an opportunity in the land of opportunity, something that was ripped out of their grasp on Tuesday.

This administration already has too many enemies to be able to function properly; the continuous staff changes and the multitude of protests, many of which are probably brewing right now, is further proof of this. Soon, they will find themselves isolated and without support, and will have nobody to blame but themselves.

I agree that they have to go home, but how can they go home if the only place they have ever called home is now closing their doors to them? Why reject those immigrants that have proven to be productive and have stayed away from crime, instead of punishing those that haven’t reached those standards?

I’m not disappointed because 744,000 Mexicans, 34,800 Salvadorans, 23,400 Guatemalans, 21,600 Hondurans, 11,400 Peruvians, 10,200 South Koreans, 8,400 Brazilians and many others are at risk of getting deported. I’m disappointed because 800,000 Americans are.