President Donald Trump is trying to take away an act that affects immigrants. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, allows individuals who entered the country illegally as minors to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to be eligible for a work permit. It helps remove immigration enforcement attention away from individuals with good behavior.

The people protected under DACA are called DREAMers. It stands for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors. Trump announced last year, while he was still running for president, that he was going to destroy DACA and deport the 11 million undocumented people in the United States. He said it was going to be a top priority of his when he became president. Since he won the presidential election, Trump recently brought this back up when his team formally announced the end of it at the beginning of September. He passed it off to Congress, so they can figure out how to legalize DACA. There is going to be a period of six months  for the decision to be made, but DREAMers are starting to get worried. If Congress passes this act, they will still lose their status by March of 2020 which we all dread. It is going to ruin America if Trump is able to get rid of the act.

DACA is super important to DREAMers. It protects them from deportation because they are not at fault for coming to America illegally. They were brought over as minors and had no say in where they were going. DREAMers are upstanding citizens of America and have no criminal records. They are given a background check when they apply, to make sure they are not criminals and follow the law. Why would Trump want to get rid of these people? They actually work, make money, and pay taxes. They are upstanding citizens of the United States and are the best of the best.

If Congress is not able to legalize DACA, about 800,000 immigrants will be deported back to the country their parents are originally from. Businesses will lose tons of workers who have been working there for years. Most immigrants that are going to be sent back will not even know how the country works. They were born in America and have never visited their home country, which is heartbreaking. Also, the economy could lose around $280 billion dollars. The economy would go down hill and lives could be destroyed. Getting rid of DACA is just going to cause more problems in the end for Trump.

This is totally unfair to the millions of immigrants that have worked so hard to build their lives here in America. The ones that would be deported back came over when they were super young with their families. They did not know what they were doing. The DREAMers are not the ones ruining the economy. The ones ruining the economy are legal in the U.S. and they do not work and mooch off of the government. Instead of blaming the ones who are actually working, Trump should take a look into people who are legal, who are perfectly capable of working, but they just want to sit around and have things handed to them. Trump needs to find someone else to blame for the problems that are going on in the U.S. instead of trying to ruin hardworking immigrants.

Trump does not have one good bone in his body. Does he not understand the long process these people are now going to have to face? They have worked years to build up their lives here. They have not known anything else except the U.S. Now they have to go to a foreign country that they know nothing about. Once they move over to that country, they then have to fill out so much paperwork to try and get their green card to come back to the U.S. Even if they get their green card, they still have to apply to become a citizen of the U.S. That could take decades before they are even looked at to see if they have a clean background. When you really look at it, it would be totally pointless in the end to do that, but that is just your opinion. These people want their families to have better lives than they did. They want to give them a better future and a chance to have a great life. They would rather give up their chance at becoming an American citizen as long as the people they love are able to. It is so inspirational and they represent the American dream way more than Trump does.

“DACA should be kept legal. It will ruin lives and tear families apart. Immigrants are being sent back to countries they have never even been to. It does not make any sense for what Trump is trying to do. It goes against what he spoke about when he was running his campaign,” junior Brishana Collins said.