Beyond the numbers, our DACA youth are teachers, nurses, firefighters, non-profit workers, and the laborers building the infrastructure and roads that keep society running. When advocates and allies of Dreamers meet with legislators, we always mention their contributions to our economy and the detriment that having them live in the shadows would cause. These arguments are true, but as someone who is an immigrant herself, and who lives in a mixed status family, I am frankly tired that for politicians, the fact that immigrants are human beings is not enough. That when they talk about “sending them back” and refuse to consider a pathway for them, they don’t see the impact this will have on the young people and their families.

They don’t think about how Dreamers are children who grew up here, and have spent their most formative years learning, developing, and building lives here, and who now risk losing all they have. They don’t realize what the cost of not having a license, of not being able to cash your check because you don’t have identification, of not being able to open an account at the bank, of not being able to contribute to the community like everyone else, has on people. They don’t consider that when immigrant youth are graduating at the top of their class, working arduously for scholarships that are limited because of their status, and getting into and graduating from college, they might find themselves unable to use their degree because they lack a social security number. Although there is no physical wall, immigrants still find themselves facing an invisible wall barring them from reaching higher. DACA helped change that for 800,000 immigrant youth. When the Trump administration rescinded the program in September, all those young lives were put at risk again.

Read the full article by Citlaly Mora about the Dream Act from the YWCA