SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- Leaders of University of California (UC) denounced U.S. President Donald Trump's decision Tuesday to end the DACA program that gives undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children a chance to stay and work.
Meanwhile, hours after the U.S. Department of Justice announced the move, both University of California (UC) President Janet Napolitano and UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Chris pledged to offer continued support for UC students who are participants of the DACA program, acronym for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which was launched in June 2012 during the administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama.
"This backward-thinking, far-reaching move threatens to separate families and derail the futures of some of this country's brightest young minds, thousands of whom currently attend or have graduated from the University of California," said Napolitano, who was U.S. secretary of homeland security from 2009 to 2013 and had a part in formulating the DACA program.
Under an executive order signed by Obama, DACA allows so-called Dreamers to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and eligibility for a work permit by applying to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
From her perspective as chancellor for one of the 10 UC campuses, Chris noted that the termination of DACA "not only undermines the lives and futures of undocumented students but also places particularly at risk those currently with DACA status since they have submitted proof of their undocumented status to the government."
She was referring to the possibility that these students, by registering with federal authorities, are more likely and easily to be identified by government agencies for future deportations.
"To that end," she said, "we will ask our congressional delegation to move quickly to take action to provide protection for our undocumented students and give them a path to permanent residency and eventually citizenship."
Napolitano echoed the same sentiment and hoped for a similar solution: "I call upon the U.S. Congress to immediately pass bipartisan legislation that would provide a permanent solution for these young people -- one that charts a secure pathway toward citizenship and allows these Dreamers to continue to live, work and serve the only country most of them know as home."
DACA participants, about 800,000 across the United States, are referred to as "Dreamers," a term derives from a legislative proposal known as the DREAM Act, acronym for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors. First introduced in the Senate in 2001 and reintroduced several times in years thereafter, the bill and several similar versions failed to pass through the U.S. legislative branch.
While there are media reports that of 10 UC campuses in the Golden State on the U.S. West Coast, UC Los Angeles and UC Irvine have more Dreamers than other UC campuses, neither Napolitano nor Chris provided any numbers on the size of the DACA student body within the UC system or at UC Berkeley.
Napolitano said UC will continuing to offer services to undocumented students, by allowing California residents who are Dreamers to pay in-state tuition; maintaining the loan program for these students; offering legal services to undocumented students; and directing campus police not to contact, detain, question or arrest individuals based on suspected undocumented status, or to enter agreements to undertake joint efforts to make arrests for federal immigration law violations.
"The University of California will continue to stand with Dreamers and their supporters," she said.
