President Donald Trump made the executive decision Tuesday to revoke the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival Program (DACA), another decision by the president that will send our country spiraling backward. 

The program was established in 2012 under the Obama administration. 

DACA allows children of undocumented immigrants to apply for a renewable two-year visa and stay in the United States. 

It allows them to work, study beyond the high school level, buy cars, buy homes and contribute to our society. 

The people who have used DACA to stay in the U.S. are working, getting educations, paying taxes and contributing as any American does. 

According to a CBS report, 800,000 young, undocumented DACA recipients are making an impact and influencing  the U.S. economy. 

Losing those 800,000 DACA workers would reduce U.S. gross domestic product by $433 billion over the next 10 years, according to a study by the Center for American Progress.

If the decision to end DACA is approved by Congress, teenagers and children as young as 6 years old will be deported back to countries they have never called home and know nothing about. 

I am not personally affected by the decision to end DACA, but my heart shatters for my fellow Americans whose livelihoods are being threatened due to their parents’ decision to enter the United States illegally. 

Everything these children have ever known is being threatened even though they have been nothing but law-abiding, contributing citizens. 

DACA recipients have worked hard to fulfill the dreams their parents had when they came to this country. 

Why does America continue to push down the most vulnerable people in our society?

I plead for all of you to imagine yourself in this position of living in fear. 

When I think about this tragedy, I think of my best friend from Equador, who is in this country on a student visa after escaping the dangers he lived in every day. 

I think about his hard work, determination, positivity and respect for the country that has given him so much. 

I think about how he could easily be the next one getting taken from everyone and everything he knows. 

Putting ourselves in the shoes of law-abiding immigrants should remind us all why revoking this program is wrong and un-American. 

This will affect our world, our neighborhood and our campus.

In place of oppressing Dreamers, let us use our place of privilege to stand up for those who don’t get the opportunity to do so. 

Being a well-rounded global citizen is the first step in resolving this kind of  issue.

Perpetuating the xenophobic tendencies of the Trump administration will only worsen our problems.

I stand with the Dreamers, and I stand with DACA. No human should be considered illegal.

 

Natlalie Hilden is a journalism major and can be reached at [email protected].