In the past 200 some – odd days discrimination has trumped equality by a long shot, no pun intended. President Trump is currently reviewing and considering the repeal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act. 

Barack Obama created DACA in order to provide immigrant children with the chance to receive an education and adults, a legal working permit. 

The permit is not available to every immigrant, there is a list of requirements that each applicant must meet and the act is capped at 787 thousand.

As reported by the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services, in order to qualify for DACA, each individual must have been under 31 years old as of June 15, 2012, entered the United States before the age of 16, lived in the U.S. since June 15, 2007, be currently in or graduated from high school or obtained a GED, have no criminal record and the permit must be renewed every two years in order to ensure each applicant is in school or working. 

Despite the act’s complex process, over one million have applied every year since it was introduced.     

Throughout Trump’s 2016 campaign, he promised to repeal DACA in order to reduce the amount of criminals in our country, but news flash Mr. Trump, all applicants and awardees must have a clean criminal record. 

Repealing DACA would ruin lives of the DREAMers – the name of the students who have received the award – and result in many being deported to their country of origin. 

The process of deportation is not cheap, according to the Washington Post to deport just one individual costs about $10,854. Repealing DACA will commit our country to spending billions of dollars in deportation expenses, $8.5 billion to be exact.

The DREAMers are in complete disarray and fear that their bright futures are coming to an end. NBC News reports that Dreamers and DACA advocates have been at the White House everyday since Aug. 15. 

These young adults have become Americans, most have lived the majority of their lives here and being deported would mean being placed in a foreign country even though it is their country of origin. 

To quote a DREAMer from an NBC News interview outside of the White House: “DACA is young immigrants that were brought here when they were children and some of them don’t even speak the language of the country to where they would be deported,” he said.

Forcing people out of the country, who were raised here, developed roots here and are achieving life-long dreams here would be cruel. 

Illegal immigration is a problem, the U.S. does have the right to control who lives in the country and there are people who should be deported from the U.S. but DREAMers are not those people. 

Telling these people that their roots and dreams do not matter is just injudicious. 

Considering that in order to receive this award one must have entered the U.S. under the age of 16, these immigrants came as children and shouldn’t have to face the consequences of choices their parents made for them.

On Sept. 3, President Trump announced he has chosen to end the program. The program is set to end with a six month delay, which gives Congress a window of time to stop it, according to The Hill. 

SSU is one of the many schools that has a program for DACA students, so repealing the act would mean losing some of your fellow students and friends. 

DREAMers are not a menace to society, do not pose a threat to national security or public safety, they are simply students and employees just like every other average American. 

The official statement is scheduled for Sept. 5, until then nothing is set in stone.