'We will be shutting the door on an entire generation': Harvard, Yale, and Stanford write to Congress urging protection for DACA recipients

pulse

October 20, 2017 6:47 PM

Hundreds of colleges and universities signed a letter urging Congress to "pass a long-term legislative fix as soon as possible to protect Dreamers."

In September, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
DACA provides temporary protection from deportation to some unauthorized immigrants brought to the US as children.
Hundreds of colleges and universities — including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford — wrote a letter urging the Senate and the House of Representatives to protect the roughly 800,000 DACA recipients.

Hundreds of colleges and universities — including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford — signed a letter urging members of the Senate and the House of Representatives to "pass a long-term legislative fix as soon as possible to protect" the class of young immigrants known as Dreamers.

The letter, addressed to House Speaker Paul Ryan, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, urged lawmakers to "take the action that President Trump requested when he rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, and pass a long-term legislative fix as soon as possible to protect Dreamers, outstanding young people brought to our country as children."

DACA provides temporary protection from deportation for some immigrants living in the US illegally who were brought to the country as children.

The colleges said that they had seen the program's "remarkable people up close" and that they have made "incredible contributions to our country and its economy and security."

The letter comes a month after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the end of the DACA program, an action that could affect roughly 800,000 recipients next year, though Trump suggested he wanted Congress to develop a replacement for the program.

Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, previously condemned the Trump administration's decision to end the program.

"This cruel policy recognizes neither justice nor mercy," Faust wrote in an email to community members shared with Business Insider. "In the months to come, we will make every effort to have our voice heard, in the halls of Congress and elsewhere, about the need for the protections of DACA to continue."

You can read the full letter below:

pulse