Trump Immigration

Alex Pedersen

Trump Immigration

            Trump has announced that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, will be coming to an end on March 5. This program allows dreamers, or people who crossed the border illegally as children, a chance to stay in the United States without the fear of being deported. President Trump has long been opposed to this Obama-era program. He argues that all people wishing to move to the United States should do so using the proper procedures set up by the United States government. However, ending this program would be absolutely devastating to Dreamers, many of which do not even remember crossing the border or the short amount of time that they lived in their native country. Many Dreamers live lives just like the students here at North Central College. They are looking to take advantage of the life that their parents risked so much to provide. Dreamers are not the type of undocumented immigrants that are bringing crime and drugs into our country. Most of the time, Dreamers and their families flee to our country in an effort to escape the dangerous environment in Mexico that is riddled with drug cartels and crime.

Quite frankly, I believe that Trump’s immigration policy goes against the platforms that our country is built upon; opportunity, equality, and the pursuit of happiness. Our government should be looking for more efficient ways to lead Dreamers to citizenship, rather than completely uprooting them as quickly as possible. Instead of turning the people away who looked to the United States for help in the most vulnerable part of their life, we should applaud their resilience and accept them into our society. Just like many citizens of Europe turned to the “New World” as a place to get a fresh start in the 19^th century, the United States should continue to offer the same opportunity to people from all over the world.

Along with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Trump has ensured the public that his he will uphold his campaign promise of building his “big, beautiful wall” at the United States-Mexico border. The Trump administration has requested $18 billion from congress in order to build the wall, but so far, they have not gone along with this request. Going forward, I believe that plans for a border wall should be completely eliminated. Instead of dumping $18 billion into a wall that is not needed, perhaps the United States should put that money into efforts that would help stabilize the government in Mexico. This way, many people would not have the urge or need to cross into America illegally. With increased aid from the United States, future Dreamers might not be forced to immigrate illegally. They would be able to prosper in their own country and if they still desire to move to America, they will be able to do so legally.

Another potentially devastating blow to immigrants is the Trump administration’s decision regarding more than a quarter of a million immigrants from El Salvador. This particular group of immigrants came to the United States after an earthquake hit their country in 2001. Trump and his supporters have argued that their stay in the U.S. was always considered temporary. Much like the Dreamers, I believe that these people should not be uprooted from the society that they have lived in for almost two decades. Most of them work, pay taxes, and are raising families he in the United States and are in no shape to pick everything up and move back to El Salvador. Again, forcing these people to leave their homes here in the United States is wrong. Legislation that would give them the opportunity to become legal residents of the United States needs to be passed.

In short, this administrations’ immigration policies are absolutely foolish. The Trump administration is talking about building a wall that would waste tax payer money and shows no evidence of helping the problem of illegal immigration. Their intentions of ending DACA and forcing the Salvadorans back to their countries would uproot young, promising lives and families that have been settled in the United States for decades. The solution to America’s illegal immigration issue does not lie within the illegal immigrants themselves. Instead, America needs to look into the reasons why people are leaving their countries in the first place.