DREAM Act Portal Forum - Donald Trump must do the right thing by keeping DACA

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Dear President-elect Donald Trump:

Please don’t end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. I know you will have the power to end the program with the stroke of a pen. But that’s a bad idea.

DACA has benefitted more than 700,000 immigrants who came here before the age of 16. They are young men and women going to school, working and paying taxes and living the American Dream. As for those yet to apply, most came here at age 6 or even younger.

I understand your desire to deport criminals, but these DACA youth are not criminals. Some have committed minor crimes, but all have at least a high school diploma or are studying to get one.

Many have college and graduate degrees. Sixty-five percent are in school, 62% are earning more than before getting DACA, and 21% bought their first car since getting DACA. Immigrants are ambitious. That was true when the first Europeans came to our shores, and it remains true today.

As a professor approaching retirement, I know that now that these young people can work legally, they are more likely to work in jobs that deduct Social Security and tax contributions from their paychecks.

While you will be enjoying the holiday season with your family, DACA young people will be living in fear that you will take away their right to work, their right to travel abroad and their right to be safe from deportation.

As director of the City University of New York’s immigrant legal service program, Citizenship Now! I have heard way too many stories of these wonderful young people crying at their desks, living in fear that their dreams of a college education and the chance to live the good life are doomed.

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