The world seems to be grinding to a halt. With natural disasters on both sides of the country, as well as in Mexico, many Americans are without a home, torn from their families, and devastated. While things seem helpless and completely out of our control, we still have the ability to change the same reality that a much more widespread group of Americans may soon face: deportation.
In June of 2012, President Obama rolled out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration policy, or DACA. This policy would allow applicants who had entered the country in or before the year 2007, as long as they were below 16 years old at their time of arrival, to apply for a 2-year stay in the USA while getting a job, receiving licenses, and paying income tax. Since 2012, DACA has helped 800,000 people securely call America their home. For many, this policy provided relief, as immigrant families wouldn’t have to worry about their children getting deported back to a country they have never known.
However, that fear has been rekindled over the course of these past few weeks. President Trump has rolled out a plan to end DACA completely while emphasizing a “gradual phase-out” that will begin with the termination of permits in six months. This means that after this time period, DACA recipients will not be allowed to work; to possibly provide for themselves and their families. I visited the DACA website myself and found that the application had already been blocked, in red letters, across the screen. This was real.
While I had an awakening to the fact that this was really happening, I had no actual fathoming for what this must be like for the thousands of people, some of them my peers. I am a middle-class white woman going to private school in San Francisco, how could I ever know what it is like to be faced with deportation to a place I have never known, away from all the people I loved? To combat this lack of comprehension, I briefly interviewed Tania, an acquaintance that I met during a pre-college program (who currently attends Harvard University) and a DACA recipient.
Me: What do you want people to know the most about the consequences of the recent DACA decision?
Tania: I think the most important thing to think about with what the decision means is that it is going to affect not just students, but doctors, policemen, teachers, and people in all kinds of professions. Not everyone under DACA is a seventeen-year-old trying to get into college, there are adults who have families who won’t be able to work once their work permits expire. There are people who decided not to go to college whose only income is said work. So, while we should focus on students with DACA, the program encompassed so much more than college students. Speaking of college students, they’re going to finish college with a great degree but no place to work. The loss of work permits is the direst aspect of the recent decision
M: Being a DACA recipient yourself, how have you felt since President Trump announced the decision to end DACA?
T: The first day I felt helpless, especially in the morning, but I felt better late from the support on from everyone on campus, especially from advocacy group and the administration. Right now I’m just focused on how I can support myself through school once I can no longer work.
M: What do you want to say to the people who are in your same situation?
T: I really want to stress to other DACA recipients that people thrived and had lives before DACA and it can still be possible to go to school and practice advocacy after. Of course, it’s a million times harder now but people advanced in life before DACA and if anything we should be continuing to move forward and keep working towards a permanent immigration reform for not just ourselves, but the 11 million other undocumented immigrants in this country who didn’t qualify for DACA.
In recent times, the American people have suffered greatly. I implore everyone reading this article to take back control and do what they can help Americans in any way possible. A large part of that would be to support DACA and advocate for its renewal. Loving America is also recognizing what America can do to improve, and assuming an active role in that improvement. Everyone deserves a chance in America; it is in our creed that we have struggled to fulfill since the country’s inception. The displacement of families and young people (who pay income tax) will in no way protect or improve our country, but it will make it weaker with the absence of the brilliant things DACA recipients have to offer. Immigrants are people as well, it is often forgotten, and they deserve a seat at this table. Please, please, please, do this today, for the sake of tomorrow.
