DACA deadline prompts nationwide demonstrations

FILE PHOTO

Asian Americans show their support for DACA in a demonstration last year..

MARCH 5 was the day DACA was supposed to end. The young people who are in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program had two options: flee or fight. They chose the latter.

Demonstrations took place in major cities across the US in support of the DACA program that protects young undocumented immigrants from deportations.

Hundreds of people took to the National Mall in Washington, DC, on Monday, holding placards with slogans such as "Undocumented and Unafraid" and "Let My People Stay."

The public demonstrations are meant to keep up the pressure on Congress to continue to find a way to continue DACA or create a replacement. After two judges ruled that the President Obama initiative must continue until Congress finds a resolution, the GOP-dominated Senate and House seemed to end discussion about the issue.

Six months ago, in his manic drive to erase Obama's legacy, Donald Trump rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that protected the young men and women who were brought into the U.S. as children by their undocumented parents.

“Dreamers are Americans in every way but on paper. They have grown up in our communities and pledge allegiance to our flag," said Sen. Kamala Harris, D-CA. "They’re contributing to our economy and thriving in our universities, workforce and military, including 220,000 in California alone. Dreamers represent the best of who we are as a country and know no other place but the United States as their home."

Trump gave Congress six months to come up with legislation that would do the same thing that the DACA program was already doing -- protecting the Dreamers from deportation.

Obama initiated the program by executive order because the  GOP-controlled Congress refused to approve legislation that would allow the Dreamers to stay in the only country they've ever known.

“The reality is, this Administration created this crisis and sabotaged every effort by Congress to resolve it by using these young people as pawns to achieve an anti-immigrant agenda," said the Indian/American senator.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other immigration advocates also launched a national TV ad campaign over the weekend, opening with one of President Trump's past promises: "We're going to deal with DACA with heart, because I love these kids."

Congress failed to agree on several resolutions last month -- even two that had bipartisan support. The problem was instead of debating DACA, the Trump administration made the discussion about immigration reform, making the issue far more complicated and difficult to meet the March 5 deadline.

More than 90 percent of the 800,000 DACA recipients are employed or in school. Less than one percent had their protection rescinded due to illegal activity, cite immigration advocates.

"With these actions across the country, immigrant youth and their allies are calling on the House of Representatives to pass a narrow and permanent solution to protect immigrant youth from deportation," said a statement Together We Dream, a nonprofit that supports the DACA program. 

Meanwhile, Dreamers are left in limbo. The slow processing of DACA renewals have left many Dreamers vulnerable to deportation as their protected status expires.

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