Reaction from many advocates in our region to President Trump’s decision to abolish DACA — the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — was swift and negative.
Vermont’s Congressional delegation and its Republican governor condemned the president’s action in statements Tuesday.
Democratic U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy’s began by saying the president “….has revealed he is as heartless as he is uninformed” adding that Trump “…is targeting yet another exemplary group of individuals who enrich the fabric of our society.”
Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders vilified the administration’s decision in a video statement, calling it “the ugliest and most cruel decision made by a president of the United States in the modern history of this country.” “The idea that you would take away the legal status of some 800,000 young people—young people who have known no home other than the United States, young people today who have good jobs being productive members of the economy, young people who are in school, young people who are serving the military—and take away their legal status and put them in a position where they could be deported and thrown out of the only country that they can remember. Our job now in Congress is to move as quickly as we possibly can … and to pass legislation repealing Trump’s horrific decision.”
One of the affected Dreamers is Martha Herrera. She has been working at Migrant Justice for the past year after living in New York. “Well I came when I was 15 years old and I came here to support my parents, my family back in Mexico because in Mexico it’s difficult to make a living for yourself to live a better life because of a lot of reasons, a lack of jobs, because of instability, the crime. That’s why.”
The Berkshire Immigrant Center based in Pittsfield wants Dreamers to know that they are not alone. Executive Director Brooke Mead says everyone must stand up. “This is morally wrong. It is cruel. It is not who we are as a country. And I am disgusted and disgusted that we would let young people who were raised here who are contributing to the United States sign up for something and then take it away and put them at risk of deportation. So I think the cost to the soul of our country is going to be higher than even the economic cost.”
Mead adds that the silver lining might be passage of legislation to give Dreamers a path to citizenship. “How sad is it that it would take destroying or almost destroying millions of lives to do so? And no matter if we do manage to pass it, which I believe we can and will be a huge victory, I can only imagine what people must be feeling right now. I’m a parent and I don’t have to worry that those children are going to be deported and they don’t have to worry that somebody is going to come in the middle of the night and take me away. I don’t have to worry about their future and that they’re going to have a shot in the United States. So what this community is feeling right now we need to all be there to stand up and support them.”
Speaking through interpreter Will Lambeck, Herrera says people need to understand how much DACA has benefitted individuals. “Because of DACA people have been able to go to school. People have been able to get jobs, better jobs than we otherwise would have had. It’s meant so much to so many people. And it would be an injustice just to take that away and to hang deportation over the heads of so many people because we’ve made a life in this county. This is our home and being sent to Mexico it would be like starting from zero again. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
