Above photo: Students gather in the University Student Center to learn about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and write letters to their local legislators. Martha Rhine | The Crow’s Nest
By Martha Rhine
Rise up and be heard. That was the message of a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals letter-writing workshop held on Tuesday in The Reef.
Ignite, a social justice group from the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA), welcomed students curious about DACA, provided information and answered questions. Students were then given step-by-step instructions on how to find and write their representatives in Congress.
DACA was implemented by President Obama in 2012 after Congress failed to pass the bipartisan Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would open up a path to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
The Dreamers are the 800,000 young people currently taking refuge under DACA. The program allows them to live, work and study in the U.S. without the threat of deportation, for renewable two-year periods.
To receive protection, applicants had to be younger than 31 when the program began on June 15, 2012, younger than 16 when they arrived in the U.S. and pass criminal background checks.
Most Americans support a path to citizenship for Dreamers, according to a Morning Consult National Tracking Poll.
So why is Washington not listening?
President Trump’s about-face on the issue resulted in a statement on Sept. 5, 2017 by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, announcing that the administration would be ending the program by March 2018.
Congress has been tasked with finding new legislative solutions, but as of today none are forthcoming, and the Dreamers continue to be used as a bargaining tool in the fight for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Norma Vega, a psychology major and student leader for Ignite, realized how uninformed students were about DACA the first time she held a letter-writing workshop.
Vega saw an opportunity to educate students about civic responsibility and their representatives duty to listen. “It’s put into place specifically for them to listen,” she said.
Staffers in Congress are required to act on a surge of letters from constituents.
Vega sees college students as natural allies in cases like this.
“As a university, we’re meant to educate people. For a lot of Dreamers, that’s their dream; the college education,” she said.
By 12:30 p.m., The Reef was busy while several students wrote letters and a nearby television played an informational piece by Vox on DACA’s current status.
Anthropology major Madison Faith said she felt obligated to advocate for Dreamers from her place of privilege.
“The whole ‘not working hard enough’ mindset is not true if everyone is starting off from different points of status,” she said.
Chandler Lazear, anthropology major, knew nothing about DACA initially.
“I’ve been too busy with studies to keep up, but they did a good job of informing me,” he said. “This has made me a lot more invested in what’s going on.”
Ignite will host one last letter writing workshop from noon to 2 p.m. on Feb. 27 in The Reef.
