Despite many in the Republican Party being is opposed to the decision and House Speaker Paul Ryan’s advice to the president, the Trump Administration has decided to discontinue the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals, also known as the DACA program.
DACA, which was founded by the Obama Administration in 2012, protected undocumented immigrants, or “Dreamers”, who entered the country as children from being deported. If the program is discontinued, after a six month delay period around 800,000 immigrants would be subject to deportation by ICE to whatever country they came from.In the case of a lot of Dreamers, these immigrants have no memory of the countries where they were born or worse were unaware that they were ever undocumented in the first place. According to a press conference by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the president has decided as of today, that the DACA program will be phased out over a two year period.
Regardless of the president’s decision, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg hosted a press conference on August 29th to reassure California’s 22,000 Dreamers that Sacramento, and most of California, will protect the undocumented from ICE.
“In Sacramento, there are 13,000 Dreamers,” said the Mayor. “President Trump, don’t destroy the dreams of our Dreamers.”
The Sacramento Police Department also wanted to assure Dreamers of their compliance with the mayor’s idea in the hope that the undocumented won’t neglect to report crime in fear of being deported.
“Our mission statement is to improve and enhance the quality of life for everyone in our community and regardless of what federal program gets changed or doesn’t get changed, our mission statement doesn’t change,” Sacramento Police Chief Daniels said at the conference.“We are not as concerned with somebody’s status as we are concerned with how things happen in their community [affect] their quality of life.”
Despite reassurances from state leaders, there are still protests scheduled against the discontinuation of DACA in Bakersfield, New York, and Troy, Michigan and many more places around the country.
