By Alex Massoud ’20
After months of arguing and debating, the Trump administration’s controversial efforts to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) have been denied once again. The administration will have 90 days, however, to present a new reason, and new case altogether, as to why DACA should be repealed. If not, the president and his administration have been ordered to start approving DACA applications once more. Hopefully, for the sake of the country, these efforts to overturn the legality of the program by Trump prove once again to be futile.
The reason for why DACA should remain in place is a fairly simple one – if the United States were built on a foundation of immigrants and expatriates, why are we attempting to deport them, especially those who have lived in the United States for the majority of their lives? Overturning the DACA program would mean that thousands of young adults, those who have grown up and embraced American culture, will be sent to a country where they are not just foreign, but unfamiliar with the culture. The people who face duress under President Trump are just as American as Trump himself; he has no right, even as president, to deport them from a country that they call home.
Additionally, the young adults who are benefiting from the DACA program have proved to be very successful Americans. According to the New York Times, they are educated, hard-working, economically successful and law-abiding citizens. This effectively discredits the entirety of Trump’s argument, which he and his administration have based on the idea that immigrants, or for that matter any descendants, – present a major threat to American society. DACA recipients have added to the cultural and ethnic melting pot of the United States and, despite what the president may say, deserve a chance in the United States.
The U.S. legal system, as well as American citizens, must draw the line here, lest Trump attempt to take more aggressive legal steps. Judge John Bates, the federal judge who overturned the legal status of DACA, argues that Trump’s actions were unconstitutional and unlawful. These two assertions could not be more true. When President Obama instituted the DACA program in 2013, it marked one of the most progressive and monumental immigration programs in the twentieth century. We cannot let President Trump repeal it.
