Jerry Brown, governor of California, recently announced his plan to invest $30 million in college financial aid and legal services for young immigrants. The announcement was in response to Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
DACA currently protects 800,000 undocumented young people who are Americans at heart from being deported. This Obama-era program also allowed DREAMers to obtain a work permit, but the future is unclear as to what will happen to them come March.
Brown and other prominent legislators who want to help DREAMers need for this plan to be approved by legislators before they go on break for the rest of the year. Meanwhile, Congress needs to find a permanent solution to protect hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants before March.
California plans to allocate $20 million to legal services for DACA recipients. The remaining $10 million is to be divided into three parts: $7 million for community college students who are part of the DACA program, $2 million for students in the California State University system, and $1 million to University of California students.
About a quarter of the 800,000 DACA recipients reside in California, and the Golden State is one of 19 states suing Trump’s administration for rescinding DACA. They are working all angles to defend the undocumented youth, even introducing Senate Bill 54 that would limit the role of state authorities in holding undocumented immigrants.
Senate leader Kevin de León, along with Governor Brown, introduced this bill earlier in the year. SB 54 would prohibit police departments from questioning an individual about his or her legal status in the country or holding a person for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In a public statement, Brown said:
“This bill protects public safety and people who come to California to work hard and make this state a better place.”
Although the bill is not perfect, it is a step toward keeping families together and avoiding mass deportations. It also gives DREAMers hope for a better future despite the uncertainty they currently feel in the only country they’ve ever called home.
The current political climate in the United States has demonized immigrants of all creeds and colors. American politicians often use immigrants as scapegoats for many of the issues they can’t seem to figure out, and it’s time that that ends.
Lawmakers in Sacramento are in the last hours of the legislative session for 2017. Both of these measures presented by Jerry Brown must pass now or wait until 2018 to try again.