AAU President Barbara R. Snyder issued the below statement on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling yesterday that declared the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects approximately 600,000 young people who were brought to the United States as children from deportation, illegal:
We are disappointed by this misguided ruling, which once again places the futures of more than half a million deserving college students and other young people in limbo. While we are relieved that current DACA beneficiaries are able to continue living and working in the United States under the ruling, we are frustrated by the continued uncertainty.
We hope that Congress is listening, because they are the only ones who can rectify the Dreamers’ cruel and untenable predicament by creating a permanent solution. DACA beneficiaries were brought here as children through no fault of their own, and they are American in every way other than legal status. We cannot afford to waste our home-grown talent in science and other fields, and a lack of congressional action to codify protections for Dreamers risks doing just that. Congress must act, now, on a policy that enjoys broad bipartisan support: immigration reform that includes permanent protections for DACA recipients.
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