Sessions Announces Cruel Termination of DACA - A Call to Humanity for Our Nation
Phoenix, AZ - Today our nation has moved backwards. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has shown that he will not stand in the side of justice. Instead, he will ensure a great injustice will happen to close to one million undocumented youth. Justice is not ending Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program that allowed undocumented youth who came to the United States as minor to receive a two-year period of deferred action from deportation; and to obtain a work permit and to fulfill their personal and professional goals. Research has shown that DACA did not only benefited nearly a million young immigrants, but these undocumented young immigrants made significant contributions to the United States, and those contributions are also the labor and work of their/our families and communities. This generative labor has now been torn away from them, and will have serious negative economic consequences.. This does not come as a surprise, but is a testament that the current administration is not serious in representing the interest of our nation.
Reyna Montoya, DACA beneficiary - Founder of Aliento and 2017 Echoing Green Fellow, said:
“Today our nation has become a little darker. Today - I, along with 800,000 youth are at risk of getting deported if there is no permanent solution since DACA has been rescinded. I am choosing to be a voice for the voiceless. I will continue to fight because I know that ICE at any moment can come to my house and destroyed everything my family and I have worked for. I believe we don't have to stand in darkness. I am calling for good people of conscious to choose light over darkness. Don't let ICE deport us.”
Jose Patiño, DACA beneficiary - Campaigns director of Aliento, said:
“We always knew DACA was temporary measure. Its heartbreaking the way DACA is ending leaving DACA recipients vulnerable deportations. Congress had over five years since, DACA’s inception to pass a permanent solution. Now President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions had decided act inhumanly, it is up to congress to pass a stand alone legislation that will prevent the deportation of close to one million DACA recipients.”
Today is a call for people of good conscience and ask themselves if this is the nation we want to be? A nation where we deport our youth after promising that their information and the information of their loved ones would not be used against them. A nation where fear conquers love, is that really the nation we want to be?
Today undocumented youth in Arizona and across the country call on the American people to act, to stand by us, and with us. To not let politicians continue to play with our lives. We call on people of good conscience to raise their voices and demand that Congress pass the DREAM Act 2017 as a stand alone bill and local elected officials to protect undocumented youth and their families from deportation. In addition, convene neighborhood discussion groups and invite people who are directly affected, so as to provide support and safety as well as circulate the struggle.