Trump Administration Rescinds Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals

The Trump Administration announced on Sept. 5 that it is rescinding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

The announcement was made by United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions at a press conference.

“The effect of this unilateral executive amnesty, among other things, contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors on the southern border that yielded terrible humanitarian consequences,” Sessions said. “It also denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens.”

The program will begin to phase out on March 2018. DACA will not accept new applications, but recipients can still renew their status before Oct. 5 if it expires by March 5.

President Donald J. Trump gave Congress six months to create a replacement for the program.  

The decision came after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton along with 10 other state officials threatened to sue the Trump Administration if the program wasn’t suspended by Sept. 5.

“We respectfully request that the Secretary of Homeland Security phase out the DACA program,” read the letter. “Specifically, we request that the Secretary of Homeland Security rescind the June 15, 2012 DACA memorandum and order that the Executive Branch will not renew or issue any new DACA or Expanded DACA permits in the future.”

After the program was rescinded, Alexandra Ruiz, 19, an honors college student at Kendall Campus who is a Dreamer, marched with dozens of students who gathered at the Fred Shaw Plaza. She carried a blue sign that read “Let The Dream Grow.”

“Since I got DACA, I was able to kind of be a little bit of a support system for my parents since none of them are documented,” Ruiz said. “So the fact that I kind of felt that I was losing that safety net that I have over them that’s the scariest part.”

The program, an executive order by former President Barack Obama in 2012, allowed more than 800,000 undocumented people who arrived in the U.S before the age of 16 to have a driver’s license, social security number and work permit. At Miami Dade College, students under DACA are allowed to pay in-state tuition.

Francis Tume, 24, an MDC alumni who is a Dreamer, attended a press conference at Wolfson Campus on Aug. 30 to support DACA. He plans to graduate from Florida International University with a degree in international business this year.

“Everything would be on stand by, or on hold or it would stop,” Tume said. “Like it would just stop because I can’t work for anyone. I can’t drive like what can I do? I’ll have a degree in December but I won’t be able to use it, so it’s like I studied, I did all this for what?”