NCC/AAUP invites you to consider supporting a petition, brought to our attention by Professor Miguel Alonso, calling on President Obama to issue a presidential pardon to individuals covered by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). DACA, a program begun by the Obama Administration in June 2012 after the failure of the Dream Act, allows undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children to apply for a two-year deferment from possible deportation proceedings, subject to renewal, if they meet certain criteria. The applications of close to 750,000 individuals were approved. The recent election of Donald Trump leaves the future of DACA and the undocumented individuals who have benefited from it in doubt. Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon as his senior advisor and Kris Kobach (Kansas Secretary of State) as a member of his transition team brings determined anti-immigrant fervor and expertise to the emerging administration. For an excellent overview of what Trump means for Dreamers, please consider reading this  summary from The New Yorker.

As Professor Alonso noted in his email to the College, many of our students are covered by DACA. Professor Alonso writes about the possibility of Trump’s undoing Obama’s program: “While nobody knows for certain if this will indeed be the case, the fear created through his rhetoric is very real for one of the most vulnerable groups of students we currently serve.  It has been heart breaking having to look these students in the eye and explain that the only country most of them have ever known may soon turn its collective back on our fellow Americans threatening them with possible arrest, deportation and having to witness the tearing apart of their families.”

In April of this year, the NCC/AAUP’s Annual Symposium featured extraordinary stories narrated by a panel of Dreamer activists—they were community college students like our own Angel Reyes who found his life transformed by professors at NCC. The American Dream was unfolding for Angel under the tutelage of his mentors at our College. Support for Dreamers like Angel is also a central goal in the platform of the NCC/AAUP’s Let Us Learn/Let Them Learn campaign.

To sign the DACA petition, please follow this link: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/call-president-obama-issue-presidential-pardon-all-daca-enrollees