WS Chronicle

DACA edict is immoral and inhumane

To the Editor:

When [President Donald] Trump says he loves Hispanic students and DACA recipients while nullifying DACA, he sounds like Jim Crow-era white supremacists who said they loved all people but had to follow the segregationist law of their time.

This action is immoral and inhumane. These young people have served our country, died for this country, and contribute to this country. In many ways, they have acted more American than the President.

Trump’s decision to rescind their status undermines America’s moral claims and will negatively impact our economy.

Trump and [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions have been wrong on voting rights, wrong on white supremacy, and they are wrong on DACA. In fact, this attack on mostly Latino young people is in line with the policy agenda of white supremacy and white nationalism. The hate groups Trump and Sessions claim to condemn want to see mass deportations of undocumented immigrants rather than have just immigration laws.

President Donald Trump is not evolving on DACA. He is devolving and leading the nation in a downward moral spiral.

President Obama’s executive action on behalf of Dreamers has not been proven unconstitutional. Taking DACA from 800,000 young dreamers is itself a violation of our deepest constitutional values, which demand a commitment to establish justice.

This action establishes injustice. Governors, states Attorneys General, and every politician, Democrat or Republican, along with every clergy person who believes in our deepest moral and religious values, should stand up publicly against these actions by President Trump. To say nothing is in fact to be an accessory to this very cruel and inhumane policy action against humanity.

Finally, members of the President’s party who kept silent during the campaign when he was clear about what he was going to do are in large part to blame for what we are witnessing. Silence then has emboldened the President now, which means he alone is not to blame.

Bishop William J. Barber II, President, North Carolina NAACP, Durham

Terminating DACA is strong blow to immigrant communities

To the Editor:

Amidst the devastation left by Hurricane Harvey on the eastern coast of Texas – and the hit to Florida by Hurricane Irma – the Trump administration has dealt another strong and patently unnecessary blow to immigrant communities across the country today [Sept. 5] by ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The DACA program protected from deportation immigrant youth brought to the U.S. as children, allowing them to continue their contributions to the fabric of our communities. With DACA, recipients were able to work and remain legally in the U.S. DACA has been an unqualified economic and educational success, and the program’s formation was and remains well within the executive authority of the President.

The administration’s recent announcement comes on the heels of President [Donald] Trump’s pardon of the former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was held in contempt by a federal court for defying that court’s order to cease his practice of violating the constitutional rights of Latinos detained in his jail. These acts present a disturbing pattern of diminishing the value and accomplishments of Latino and immigrant communities.

In North Carolina, the DACA program has helped approximately 28,000 individuals. The President’s actions not only harm the individuals who benefitted from DACA, but will also jeopardize the economic well-being of all North Carolinians as thousands of these workers lose their jobs. Nationwide, there are 800,000 brave young DACA adults. This country is their home; placing them at risk of deportation is morally wrong and is a betrayal of our values as a nation.

Of course, the solution now lies in the hands of Congress, who must support bipartisan efforts to protect DACA recipients in the next six months. We urge Senators Thom Tillis and Richard Burr to join other members of Congress and pass an unconditional bill that protects these young immigrants from being deported to countries they don’t even recognize.

N.C. Justice Center, Raleigh