Thread: Threatening DACA is hateful and wrong-headed

Threatening DACA is hateful and wrong-headed



August 11, 2017 at 12:59 pm

A showdown awaits Congress when members return from their summer recess: Republican attorneys general from 10 states have threatened to challenge Barack Obama’s executive order that provides deportation protection for young people brought to the country illegally through no fault of their own.

The AGs know that should they send Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to court, the Trump administration would have to rely on immigration hardliner U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to defend the order.

While Trump has been supportive of DACA so far, trusting Sessions to advocate on its behalf would be like trusting an alcoholic with your liquor cabinet. Besides, what does Sessions owe his tormentor boss these days?

As part of our editorial board’s latest research on the possibility of immigration reform in the Trump era, as well as the merits of DACA, we’ve met with an array of sources. One is Congressman Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, who has gone to great lengths to cast himself as a moderate on immigration.

He argues the hardliners are acting way too cruel.

“They say, ‘Oh, we’re going to do border security and enforcement first,’ ” Coffman told us. “I say, ‘Wait a minute. Border security, fine. But if you do enforcement before you do immigration reform, you’re just going to beat the very stuffings out of these people. You are going to make their lives so much worse.’ ”

We also met with two young people who epitomize what Coffman is talking about: DACA recipients Marco Dorado and Marissa Molina, both 25 and originally from Mexico, who were spirited to Colorado at early ages.

Academic standouts, they learned early they would have to work twice as hard as other kids if they were to have a shot at making it in a country whose laws made little room for them.

They volunteered in the community and built up high school resumes that got them into college: Dorado at University of Colorado at Boulder, and Molina at Fort Lewis College in Durango.

For all that, they faced a grim future in their first two years, and Molina despaired that she wouldn’t be able to continue. Though she had some local scholarships that covered half her international tuition rate, in the summer following her sophomore year her parents told her they didn’t have enough to keep paying the other half.

She asked herself: “Is this sacrifice my parents are making worth me staying?”

She told her parents: “If I get a degree, it’s going to look very pretty framed on the wall and mean nothing. And I’m not going to watch you break your back every single day to then not be able to give back to you in the ways you have given me.”

Then there were miracles. While cleaning a house with her mother on June 15, 2012, Molina learned Obama had signed the DACA order.

In 2013, after years of failure, Colorado lawmakers passed the ASSET law that provides in-state tuition rates to students in the country illegally.

Suddenly life was full of promise. Dorado gained a finance degree. He now works as a program coordinator at the Latino Leadership Institute at the University of Denver.

“I was able to do everything you want to do growing up,” he told us.

Molina joined Teach for America, becoming one of 40 DACA recipients working for Denver Public Schools. Presently, she’s a manager of community engagement.

There are almost 750,000 young people with stories like these. They are contributing to the economy and to the success of the next generation; hard-chargers who faced down their adversity and achieved against long odds in competitive environments.

These are the kinds of young people our country most needs.

Yet all along they have been forced to measure out their futures in two-year increments, hoping that their DACA protections will be renewed.

Now they are left to hope the protections will exist at all.

Putting innocent young people like these in a position like that isn’t just hateful, it’s hopelessly wrongheaded.

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/08/11...-wrong-headed/

Lots of American children who couldn't get scholarships, are asking themselves the same questions.

Why should my parents spend all this money, or why should I saddle myself with college debts for 10-20 years, when I will loose out to illegals, HB workers, immigrants, and refugees?

I'm thinking with this diploma, they would probably make a very good living in Mexico - go home and use it.

Show a little gratitude and say Thank You.

These stories always make it seems they got this far totally on their own - no one talks about the special programs, from Headstart to granduation, scholarships, grants, etc, that allowed them to do this.

AMERICAN'S FIRST!!!

These countries "putting innocent young people...their citizens in this position" is just HATEFUL!

Go talk to their WRONGHEADED President's!

Using children as a tool, human shield and excuse for illegal invasion is hateful. Using illegal entry and children to get anchor baby status is wrong and destructive to American Citizens and Legal Immigrants that waited in line.

Originally Posted by RonLaws

Using children as a tool, human shield and excuse for illegal invasion is hateful. Using illegal entry and children to get anchor baby status is wrong and destructive to American Citizens and Legal Immigrants that waited in line.

Agreed. Furthermore, it is child abuse. Flinging your children across the border and expecting somebody else to take care of them is child abuse.

Originally Posted by pkskyali

Agreed. Furthermore, it is child abuse. Flinging your children across the border and expecting somebody else to take care of them is child abuse.

Sounds like one of those people Bush was referring to when he said, 'Family values don't end at the border.'

DACA is wrong-headed. DACA has to end. Period.