Former President Obama mentioned Dreamers are “being demonized and handled as enemies” in a social media post marking the thirteenth anniversary of his administration establishing the creation of the Deferred Motion for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
“DACA was an instance of how we is usually a nation of immigrants and a nation of legal guidelines,” Obama mentioned of this system, which was implemented to supply younger immigrants who grew up in america momentary safety from deportation.
“And it’s an instance value remembering at present, when households with comparable backgrounds who simply need to stay, work, and assist their communities, are being demonized and handled as enemies,” he continued.
The previous president’s put up comes after authorities performed a number of workplace raids throughout California in current days, detaining staff and beautiful enterprise homeowners.
In response to the raids, Los Angeles noticed a wave of protests towards Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which devolved at instances into violence. President Trump deployed the National Guard to handle the demonstrations, over the objections and criticism of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and different Democrats.
The Trump administration has since directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to pause raids towards choose industries, citing a necessity to guard companies as they lose “very long time staff,” whose jobs are “virtually unattainable to switch.”
Obama has previously expressed his assist for DACA, saying in 2022 that this system has helped recipients to cease dwelling in worry and as an alternative stay freely within the nation by which they grew up.
There are more than 530,000 lively DACA recipients as of December.
“We are able to repair our damaged immigration system whereas nonetheless recognizing our frequent humanity and treating one another with dignity and respect,” Obama mentioned in his Sunday put up. “Actually, it’s the one means we ever will.”