Opinion: DACA or Nada?
Jazmyne Boozer, Assistant Editor
Photo Courtesy of Unsplash.com
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, has gotten quite a bit of media attention due to President Donald J. Trump. The Trump Administration has recently rescinded the DACA program. As of September 7, 2017, the DACA program will be re-evaluated by the judicial branch. With this, Congress is given a mere six months’ time to decide how to deal with the roughly 800,000 people this could affect.
As of now, the DACA program is under revision by Congress as to what is going to happen to the 800,000-young people that benefit from the program. DACA is simply a program that states that children who were brought here illegally as minors are eligible for a renewable two-year time period of “deferred action” from deportation and a work permit. This was given in 2012 under the Obama Administration.
As of now the DACA program for incoming recipients is terminated until a revised edition is given by Congress. The question remains though: What is going to happen to the recipients who are currently in the United States? It is easy to see that President Trump’s agenda is to not be the president who goes against his campaign promises. In order to appease the people that voted him into office after his failure of “building that wall” he must have asked himself: What can I get rid of under the last administration that has to do with immigration? Naturally, DACA appeared. This was the most controversial program (having to do with immigration) that the last administration approved of. Now even Republicans are split…Should we send them back or let them stay?
Those who are already in the country and are benefitting from the DACA program should have the right to stay here. Trump should respect the last administration’s wishes regarding these young people. Most of the recipients of DACA are millennials and have either recently started college or are getting started in their careers. Not only this, but all recipients of DACA arrived in America under the age of 16 and 72 percent of those benefitting under the program are in higher education. Furthermore, the Department of Homeland Security has not had issues with these people. If they are here getting an education and doing good for their communities; why should we deport them?
Trump also needs to take into consideration the amount of lives he would be affecting if he deported the DACA recipients. Although 800,000 people are here because of DACA; that is approximately 1.6 million people he could be directly or indirectly affecting, assuming each recipient lives in a two-person household at least. Also, according to The Center of American Progress the U.S. would lose about $460 billion in GDP over the next 10 years due to the redaction of DACA. This is not counting the amount of money it would take to fund the deportation of these people. With all of the social, moral and economic cons, it makes sense to just allow them to stay here.
The views and opinions expressed in this editorial are solely those of the original author(s) These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of Vision Media or North Greenville University.
