Local Students, Colleges React to the End of DACA

Young people who benefited from President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program could start losing their work permits and protection from deportation after March 5, 2018, now that the Trump Administration has ordered it to be phased out.

One of them is Mary Soto, 23, who was brought to New York City's Washington Heights from the Dominican Republic when she was 6 months old.

Soto said she liked President Trump when he was elected — but feels betrayed now. "And I felt so ashamed for actually even thinking that a person like him would even reconsider keeping this program," Soto said.

"I still don't think he's the worst in the world but I do think he doesn't know us. He's never really sat down with a Dreamer and spoke to us,” she said. “Our stories, our routines, how hard we work — he doesn’t understand."

The state and city university systems of New York are urging Congress to do something to protect young people enrolled in DACA.

Isabel Martinez, a faculty member at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who directs a program providing support to recently-arrived immigrant minors in removal proceedings, said the school held emergency staff and student meetings to discuss the end of DACA. The school has been working since the November election to inform staff that immigration officials cannot enter the public university campuses without a valid warrant issued by a judge.

“[That policy] needed to be clarified and brought to light so that everybody on campus knows what to do,” Martinez said.

She added that the school has been holding "Pizza Mondays" since the election for undocumented students to vent and ask questions.

In a statement, the CUNY chancellor said the university system is prepared to offer legal advice to “the thousands of CUNY DACA students" through its university-based immigration law clinic, one of the most extensive in the country.

“This is one of the best, most successful immigration programs that I have ever seen and to let it go down like this makes no sense," said Allan Wernick, who runs the clinic, CUNY Citizenship Now. "It's insane."

His law clinic employs several DACA students. When their work permits start expiring in March, he says they won't be eligible for employment.

Soto’s mom never wanted her to apply for DACA, fearing a new administration would use her information to deport her. But Soto says DACA gave her a community and the ability to work.

“We have met so many people. We have a platform," Soto said. "That experience — he can never take that away from us.”