September 5, 2017
Today Donald Trump and his administration announced the “phasing out” of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, giving Congress six months to potentially legislate on protections for 800,000 current beneficiaries.
Dreamers are integral members of our society, as are ALL youth –ultimately the future leaders and labor force of not only this country, but of the globe. DACA beneficiaries represent some of this nation’s greatest assets, uniquely bi-cultural, bi-lingual and transnational members of our society. Raised in the U.S., educated in our schools, children and youth from our blocks, neighborhoods and cities. They have done more than their part by contributing actively to the social, cultural, civic and economic landscape of this nation, same as their families, same as the 11+ million immigrants conveniently exploited, eternally excluded and violated, solely to protect the interests of a “few” committed to perpetuating racist and oppressive social, political and economic structures of power. These systems and economic models make this nation one of the richest, but also one of the most undereducated, unhealthy, violent, racist, unequal and divided “developed” nations in the world –The system is broken, and we have been, are and will continue advancing a vision to fix it.