Nearly a million young people may soon find themselves adrift, without a home or a job, and yet it is barely a blip on the radar, lost in the hoopla surrounding the impeachment proceedings. Granted, the impeachment of a corrupt president is high priority, is perhaps the most important thing happening in this nation at the moment. But, the lives of 700,000+ young people are pretty important, too.
Imagine you came to this country as a very young child … your first memories are of life in the United States. You speak English, you went to school in this country, got an after-school job when you were 16, graduated high school with honours, and now you’re in college, studying to become a doctor, a teacher, or an accountant. Your grades have earned you a partial scholarship, you are working nights at a food processing plant … and tomorrow it could all be taken away. You could lose your job, be kicked out of school, and in fact be deported.
Deported? To where? You’ve never been outside the U.S. in your conscious memory! This is your home! You know nobody in the country of your parents’ origin. What will you do? How will you live? You barely even speak Spanish! And why? What have you done wrong? You’ve never even had so much as a parking ticket … you’ve lived your life well, respecting others, respecting the country that gave your family the opportunity for a better life.
More than 700,000 young people may face this situation soon, if he Supreme Court rules in Trump’s favour on the issue of ending DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy that has been in effect since 2012. Yesterday, the Court heard arguments from both sides, and indications are that they will likely rule in Trump’s favour.
In 2012, President Barack Obama introduced the program, which shields people who were brought to the United States as children from deportation. It was intended as a stopgap measure, and didn’t provide a pathway to citizenship. But it did allow participants, known as Dreamers, to get work permits, and in some states, including California, to access in-state tuition and legally drive. Dreamers can renew their status in two-year intervals.
To be eligible for DACA status, applicants had to show that they had arrived in the United States before they turned 16 and were no older than 30, had lived in the United States for at least the previous five years, were a high school graduate or a veteran, and had committed no serious crimes. The status lasts for two years, allows recipients to work legally and is renewable, but it does not provide a path to citizenship.
In 2017, for reasons I cannot understand, Trump decided to end the program. Trump had previously indicated his support for DACA, but it was the work of white supremacist Stephen Miller and racist former Attorney General Jeff Sessions that convinced Trump to end the program. They claimed that the program was illegal and unconstitutional, and apparently Trump, never having read the Constitution, decided to end the program. In his formal announcement to end the program, Trump wrote …
“I do not favor punishing children. The program is unlawful and unconstitutional and cannot be successfully defended in court.”
However, it has been successfully defended in court, not once, not twice, but three times. Three federal appeals courts have ruled that when an administration revokes a policy like this, on which so many people, businesses and even the U.S. economy have relied, the administration must provide a fully supported rationale that weighs the pros and cons of the program, the costs and the benefits. Faced with those lower court decisions, the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, where it now awaits its fate.
These young people have faced discrimination that nobody reading this post has likely ever faced. They are banned from many colleges, are not eligible for any federal grants or loans, and in most states, they cannot even qualify for in-state tuition. And yet thousands of them have graduated from college in the United States. How do they do it? The motivation of many of these students is so strong it is almost absurd. And if Trump has his way, it may well be a death sentence for many of the 700,000.
Maria Nava, who graduated from high school in 2003, received no state aid. But her generous sister promised to contribute her own earnings to help put Nava through college. Trouble was, their combined earnings weren’t much. Nava used up the small private scholarships she earned as a top-ranking student. Most semesters, the sisters could afford just one class at Nava’s local community college. One class at a time. Nava graduated from her two-year college in 11 years.
If the Supreme Court overturns lower court injunctions and says Trump followed the law in rescinding DACA, not one of these amazing, accomplished young people will be able to work for a law-abiding employer in the United States. After Nava’s 11 years at a two-year college, after more than 8,000 DACA teachers have been hired by U.S. school systems, after 14,000 DACA nurses and other professionals got jobs in health care — all who have jobs will have to be fired when their DACA expires. Those who are students will be ineligible for a job with a law-abiding employer.
I sincerely hope that there are five justices on the Supreme Court who have not exchanged their conscience for partisanship. If the Court sides with Donald Trump & Stephen Miller on this issue, we will know that the Judiciary Branch of our government is no longer an independent, non-partisan branch, but rather an extension of the Executive Branch, currently led by a bigoted, corrupt, wanna-be dictator.
This post is not about those two events specifically, and I won’t waste my time or yours going into detail. But rather, this post is about the thought that occurred to me upon seeing these two stories: I wonder how the human species has managed to survive this long?
By Nicholas Kristof
Ms. Briskman lost her job over that picture, but yesterday, she got a new job! She won a seat on the Loudoun County (Virginia) Board of Supervisors — ousting a Republican in the process! Says Ms. Briskman …
“There’s a lot of things, policies that I disagree with, but at the end of the day, it has more to do with the divisive rhetoric and the enabling of conspiracy theories and widening the divide in this country. My wife and I stand for inclusion and acceptance, and we’ve done work with refugees, people that come from, you know, the ‘shithole countries’. At the end of the day, as much as I wanted to be there with my teammates and share that experience with my teammates, I can’t do it. I just can’t do it.
In 2015, the Oakland Athletics announced they would host their first-ever Pride Night, to honor LGBT fans. Dolan, who has two moms, wanted to be supportive of the team’s efforts to welcome LGBT fans to the Oakland Coliseum. Some season ticket holders had negative reactions to the announced Pride Night, and said they planned to not attend the game; Dolan put out a call on her blog and Twitter feed that she would purchase any tickets at face value and donate them to local LGBT charities. She and Sean purchased 900 tickets they donated to LGBT youth groups.
Now, in my book, despite his pardon, he is still a convicted felon, and some news outlets such as Rolling Stone, Huffington Post, and CNN felt the same, for they continued to refer to Arpaio as a ‘convicted felon’. Arpaio, rather like somebody else we know of who cannot stand to be criticized or mocked, took umbrage and filed a lawsuit against the three … a lawsuit seeking compensatory damages of $300 million! Sheesh … he sued claiming defamation, but frankly ain’t nobody’s character worth that kind of money! And, as I said, he was convicted of a felony. The pardon kept him from paying a fine and going to jail, but it didn’t, in my book, erase his guilt.
In 2016, Arpaio lost his bid for re-election to Paul Penzone by a 13% margin. Arpaio, by the way, is now 87 years old. But, guess what? Arpaio is planning to run again for Sheriff of Maricopa Country in 2020! I cannot imagine that he stands a snowball’s chance, but the mere fact that he plans to run after having been exposed as a cruel, unjust racist, boggles the mind. This, folks, is the mind of a megalomaniac, similar to the one sitting in the Oval Office. Hopefully the people of Maricopa Country laugh him all the way out of the state!
On Hallowe’en night, five people were shot dead at a party in Orinda, California, east of San Francisco. Also on Hallowe’en night, a seven-year-old girl who was out trick-or-treating in a bumblebee costume was shot in the neck by a fifteen-year-old boy and critically injured. Last Sunday, October 27th, two people were shot and killed at an off-campus homecoming party near Greenville, Texas.
It is a damn shame that the people we elect to office, the people whose salaries we pay, are more committed to selling their votes to the gun lobby than they are to making this a safer nation. Yes, I’m speaking to you, Mitch McConnell, and to you Donald Trump, and to every other member of Congress who has taken money from the National Rifle Association in exchange for refusing to vote for a ban on assault weapons, or enhanced background checks, or a gun registry. Damn each and every one of you. The eight deaths listed above are on your shoulders, along with other 32,858 so far this year.
