State officials rule DACA as unconstitutional:Trump plans to end it

DACA advocates (or Dreamers) march in front of Trump Tower, holding signs saying, DACA=LIVES and We Fight Back. This is our country. We are not going anywhere, said a 23-year old advocate, who arrived in the U.S. from Mexico when she was 7.

DACA advocates (or ‘Dreamers’) march in front of Trump Tower, holding signs saying, “DACA=LIVES” and “We Fight Back”. “This is our country. We are not going anywhere,” said a 23-year old advocate, who arrived in the U.S. from Mexico when she was 7.

Hailey Scott, Samantha Ibarra, and Karly Ortiz

Donald Trump and his administration plan to freeze DACA until Congress can figure out a legal alternative. DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which helps the children who were brought to America illegally by their parents have a chance at a better future and not get deported. To me, there was nothing wrong with the program in the first place, so why try to fix it?

DACA has been helping families since it was created by Obama. Because of the program, people have been able to obtain a driver’s license, get a chance to go to college and have a job. It’s helping people! It’s not ruining the lives of others, so who cares?

State officials do, apparently. They are ruling DACA as unconstitutional. Trump stated on September 5th that, “Officials from 10 states are suing over the program, requiring my administration to make a decision regarding it’s legality”.

When DACA was created by Obama in June of 2012, he announced it as a program that allows unauthorized young immigrants to apply for a commitment from the federal government for “deferred action” for two years. Granted, DACA wasn’t a legalization program, the immigrants who applied were lawful present, but don’t have legal status.

But why, all of a sudden, is DACA a problem? Dara Lind from Vox asserts, “Trump administration has had several opportunities to end DACA — either by nullifying the existing protections for the 780,000 people who’ve already been approved under the program or by refusing to accept any new people or renew the two-year protections for existing DACA recipients when they expire”.

The state officials and Congress had PLENTY of time to decide that the program was unconstitutional. Of course, they had to wait until people got approved. Trump even claims that he thought the decision to end DACA, which is what the state officials want, was a tough decision to make. Hence the reason he gave Congress 6 months to decide what to do with the program.

Joe Biden, former Vice President, made a good point on September 5th by tweeting, “Brought by parents, these children had no choice in coming here. Now they’ll be sent to countries they’ve never known. Cruel. Not America”. These children’s parents brought them to America when they were babies. They grew up here, built their lives here and state officials want the program gone?

The truth is that the U.S. economy needs immigrants, including those who are currently undocumented.

— William Finnegan, from The New Yorker

Okay, sure, when Obama created DACA, he said it was a temporary program. With that said, I’m pretty sure Congress can think of a legal program to help the people who came here illegally.

Honestly, Trump wouldn’t be getting this much backlash if he went about the decision lightly. Him and Attorney General Jeff Sessions both argued that the people in the U.S. illegally are, “lawbreakers who hurt native-born Americans”. Way to get on the good side of most of America!

DACA isn’t hurting anyone. Quite the opposite, really. If it’s unconstitutional, make one that is. These people grew up in America, so let them stay.