The world has gone into a media frenzy after President Donald Trump announced his intentions to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, that was policy established under the Obama administration in 2012. This policy allowed numerous undocumented immigrants, who entered the country as minors, to receive a renewable period of deferred action from deportation.
This past Tuesday our wonderful President announced that DACA, a program that protected around 800,000 young undocumented immigrants, will be eradicated. The Department of Homeland Security will stop processing any new applications for the program.
Many people are looking at this simply from a political view, which is always good. We are taught that arguments should always logically sound and based off fact, not simply your emotions; and while I agree that this entire movement of hyper-concern for a person’s feelings is dangerous, there are times when empathy needs to take precedent. “Rational Thinking” laws do not always determine what is morally right or wrong. In my opinion, this is one of those times.
I do not believe that the fate of 800,000 people (people around the same age as you and I), should be hanging in the balance. The GOP is attempting to convince us that this is for our benefit because we should worry about the dreamers of this country.
They try to convince us that these people are our competition and that they are taking away opportunities such as college acceptances and scholarship money. I am just going to tell you that that statement is extremely ignorant. You might be wondering: Why? Well, these students that are our supposed competition can not even apply for the FAFSA; the first requirement is that you must be a US citizen. There are also only 16 states that allow undocumented citizens to apply for state loans. Also, undocumented citizens do not qualify for the vast majority of private loans because citizenship is the first requirement as well. These people are working ten times harder than most of us just to get a small percentage of the opportunities that we are guaranteed access to simply because we were born here.
It may hurt for some people to hear this, but this attack on DACA is not going to change the lives of many of the “dreamers” of this nation. I am so sorry if you were not aware of this but if you, an American Citizen, only has a 1.2 GPA, no extra-curricular activities, no community service experience etc gets rejected from a college, it has nothing to do with undocumented citizens taking your spot. You simply did not perform well enough, and the only person that is to blame is yourself. DACA is simply a renewable permit that allows these people to get jobs, and stay in this country to get an education. It is not a free ride. For a political party that stresses the importance of self-reliance, they search for a scapegoat for the problems they create themselves all too often.
If you are a college student and you feel as though what is happening with DACA is okay, I highly recommend that you read the stories of some of these people who are just like us. If you believe that you missed out on an opportunity that should have been “rightfully yours” as an American citizen, that truly reflects more on your work ethic because all of the resources are open to us.
