DACA program should be preserved in some form, slight majority says

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A 51 percent (blue shades in the chart) majority of Overdrive readers are in favor of preserving some form of relief from threats of deportation for participants in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. DACA put off deportation for U.S. resident aliens whose parents brought them to the United States illegally when they were children. In early September, President Trump’s administration announced intentions to phase out the program by early next year.

What should be the ultimate fate of the DACA program?

Trump himself, however, after his attorney general announced the move, expressed favor for the program despite arguments that it was instituted illegally. He urged Congress to act in bipartisan fashion to preserve the program’s goal of relief from a life of fear for those often called “Dreamers” after past failed “Dream Act” legislation, which would have had the same effect.

Summing up the majority opinion, reader Andy Soucy noted on Overdrive’s Facebook page the estimated near-800,000 young people who are part of the program “have already been checked out” during their registration for it. “They are educated and have followed everything that was asked of them. I think they earned their citizenship and should be allowed to remain as long as they continue to work and continue felony-free.”

A solid third of readers took a harder line on DACA program participants, urging the program’s sunset. Heather Kimball Keens: “If they’re not following immigration policy, they’re breaking our laws” regardless of when and how they entered the country. “Hardworking illegal immigrants? Oxymoron. Follow proper procedures to become legal. If I went to another country expecting to become a citizen, I’d have to follow their rules no matter how law-abiding or hardworking I was.”

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