Imagine being raised in the United States your entire life.
You don’t know any other country.
You have vague childhood memories of somewhere else, but everything you know is in the US.
You went to school here, you grew up here, you made friends here, your family is here,
you have a home here.
Then one day, you find out that the United States government could deport you at any moment.
For millions of people in the United States, this is a reality.
Many people were brought here as children, so the only home they know is here.
Their parents brought them here out of necessity to give them a better life; they were fleeing
extreme poverty or violence and had no choice but to escape.
And now their children are suffering because our government is so inhumane that it would
send people back to a country that they barely have any memory of.
Imagine living in constant fear of deportation simply because of where you were born.
I can’t imagine it, and unless you’ve experienced it, I doubt you can imagine it either.
But try to put yourself in their shoes.
Try to imagine what you would do as a Dreamer, as someone who was brought here as a child.
What would you do?
The only thing you could do is try stay in the US and continue living your life and pursuing your dreams.
Abandoning your family and friends to return to a country that you don’t really know
any more -- that’s not possible.
Even if for some reason you wanted to and it was safe for you to go back, you couldn’t
just buy a plane ticket because you don’t have a passport.
And you can’t legally get a job, so you couldn’t afford a plane ticket anyway.
Not to mention how terrifying it would be to have to completely start over from scratch
in a new country.
Some of the Dreamers were brought here so young that they largely grew up with English,
which means that there’s a linguistic barrier for them to go back to a non-English-speaking country.
And many Dreamers have been here for so long that they’ve had children.
Leaving the US would not only uproot their lives, but their children’s as well.
Can you even imagine that?
Dreamers are trapped here in an impossible situation, and they’re just trying to do
the best they can.
The undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children have no opportunity to become citizens.
There is no possible path to citizenship for them.
Our immigration system is broken and it leaves these people in constant fear of deportation.
People who have lived here for 10, 20, 30 years have no path to getting legal status or citizenship.
That’s unbelieveable.
These people deserve to stay here.
If someone was brought here when they were 5 years old, and now they’re 25 years old,
it’s ridiculously inhumane to suggest that we should send them back to whatever country
they were born in.
I don’t know how to argue that any further.
I think it’s just inherently inhumane.
And if you can’t see that, then I think you just have a general disregard for human life.
I don’t know how to convince you that you should have compassion for people.
But, even though the people who were brought here as kids cannot become citizens, they
can get a work permit through an immigration policy that went into effect in 2012.
It’s called DACA, and it stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
There’s some very specific criteria for people to qualify for DACA.
Basically the requirements are that you were under 31 years old as of June 15th, 2012,
you arrived in the United States before your 16th birthday, you’ve lived here continuously
since then, you graduated high school, and you have no criminal record.
You have to be able to prove all of that with documentation, and you have to undergo a background
check, which means getting fingerprinted.
Oh, and you have to pay a $495 fee.
It’s a strict program.
Plus, it’s only good for two years, which means that you have to renew it every two
years or risk deportation.
If you’re approved for a DACA work permit, that doesn’t mean you are a legal resident
or on a path to citizenship.
It just means you won’t be deported.
You’ll also get a social security number so that you can apply for jobs, go to school,
and get a driver’s license.
You’ll pay taxes, like for Social Security, but receive none of the benefits.
And you will not be eligible for government financial aid to go to college.
It’s nowhere near a free ride or an entitlement -- it’s just the very basic ability to live
and work and study without fear of deportation.
Currently, about 800,000 people in the US have DACA permits.
However, that DACA program is now ending.
On Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the program is no longer accepting
new applications, and it will be completely killed off by March 5, 2018.
If your DACA permit expires before then, you have until October 5th to renew.
So if your DACA permit expires between now and March 5, 2018, please go renew before October 5th.
It will give you at least 2 more years here in the US.
If your permit expires after March 5th, 2018, then your permit is still valid until its expiration date.
The six-month delay is intended to give Congress time to come up with a legislative solution
for all the DACA recipients.
Their argument is that Obama’s DACA program is somehow unconstitutional because he went
around Congress for it.
They talked a lot about how immigration laws protect our country and all of that, failing
to recognize that DACA recipients cannot
have a criminal record as a part of their requirements for the permit.
Ending DACA does not make us safer,
and the constitutional argument is simply an excuse to end a program
that is successful and helping people, simply because it was enacted by Obama and allows
Trump to say he acted on his promise for immigration reform.
His fan base will love it because they love it
anytime Trump does anything to harm undocumented immigrants.
But while all undocumented immigrants deserve our love and respect and support, DACA recipients
are like the most ideal members of society.
They’re better Americans than me, or you, or so many other people who just happened
to be born in this country.
And that 6-month timeframe for Congress to pass some kind of legislation -- does anyone
think they’ll actually do it?
They’re notorious for not being able to pass anything.
Even with a Republican-controlled House and Senate, they weren’t able to repeal and
replace Obamacare like they said they would.
And in this case, many top Republicans, like House Speaker Paul Ryan himself, have urged
Trump not to end DACA.
This is not a wildly liberal leftist program, it’s a program supported but all kinds of
people because it’s just the right, humane thing to do.
I could make all kinds of arguments about how DACA recipients contribute to our economy
and make use better as a country, but I think we should really just care about them because they’re people.
They’re human beings.
You could sit down and have a conversation with one and they’d tell you about their
home and family and friends and dreams and aspirations and fears.
These are just people and we need to think of them as that.
So, what we have to do now is fight like hell to keep all the DACA recipients here.
We do that by demanding that people in congress pass legislation that continues the DACA program,
and by demanding that they pass the DREAM act, which would give undocumented immigrants
a path to citizenship.
There will be links in the description so that you can call your representatives and
demand they act on this quickly.
The 800,000 people who currently have DACA permits do not have the luxury of waiting around.
They volunteered their information to the government in the hope of being allowed to
stay and work and live.
But now, if their DACA status is revoked, the government has their phone numbers, their
addresses, their fingerprints, and all sorts of personal information on them.
They are at risk of being deported if DACA is ended.
That’s so insidious, to see these 800,000 people succeeding and prospering -- and to
take that all away from them.
There’s no humanity in that.
That’s just cruel and inhumane.
We have to fight to defend DACA and keep the Dreamers here.
To do that, I highly suggest following United We Dream -- I’ll link to their website and
social media in the description.
And you can go to defendDACA.com where there’s a list of actions that you can take to help,
like calling your representatives.
There’s also a list of protests and events across the country that you can be a part of.
And dreamacttoolkit.org has the phone numbers of representatives you can call and graphics
that you can tweet at them.
This is your chance to defend the rights of our country’s most marginalized people.
Try to imagine what it’s like to be that situation.
Try to feel compassion for these people.
And then get mad about what our government is trying to do to them.
We can’t afford to ignore this.
People could lose their jobs, get kicked out of school, be torn apart from their families,
and be sent to countries that they barely remember.
They are not some myth that exists somewhere; they are real people who live and work and study here.
They’re your neighbors and classmates and coworkers.
They’re not criminals trying to hurt you; they’re just people trying to live.
If you want to learn more about DACA and what life is like in the US for undocumented immigrants,
check out the links in the description and remember to visit United We Dream.
Thanks so much for watching, and I’ll see you next time.