Recently, President Trump has been trying to either cancel DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or to make it nearly impossible for its applicants to reapply for the program again if congress does not meet Trump’s standards. If this program does end, it will affect some of our peers or families lives.

DACA is for undocumented immigrants children who were brought to the country by their parents. These children did not have a choice of coming to the country. DACA allowed for these illegal immigrant children to obtain the right to work, have ID’s, and protect them from deportation.

The people who run the risk of being deported now run the risk of going back to a country that they have no clear memory of. Some of our very own peers now run the risk of possibly being taken away from their own homes and having their whole lives changed.

If DACA is removed, the United States could lose about half a trillion dollars in deporting large amounts of people. This means that not only would deporting be bad news for DACA applicants, but it’d also be bad news for our country since doing this would result in losing mass amounts of money.

DACA applicants applied for this program so they could apply for higher education opportunities, such as getting into universities and the ability to apply for some private scholarships, and be able to qualify for better job opportunities instead of mowing lawns or working fast food. They’re not lazy freeloaders or people who are stealing your jobs if they went through this rigorous programs standards to get to the top.

Some people ask: why don’t these illegal immigrants apply for a green card or residency? Well the reason people don’t do this is because it is easier said than done. First, applying for these things can end up costing a lot money to not only apply but also the cost for hiring a lawyer. Second, you need to have certain qualifications to apply such as: being the legal guardian of a U.S. citizen, marrying a U.S. citizen, etc. Third, the process is very long, it’s not just something that takes five minutes to apply to online.

To make sure some of these brilliant minds who are trying to achieve better things for themselves are not deported, stand with them. Defending DACA will be defending your Lobo peers. Maybe instead of rejecting it entirely, government should make the applications to qualify for DACA a bit harder so people won’t take advantage of it and use it it to do something bad. The government should not make it nearly impossible for people to qualify for people who actually want to work hard towards their goal to be successful in life.