The Dreamers: People like you and I

Home is where the heart is. Everyone has a different definition for their “home,” but for the Dreamers “home” has always been America.

The Trump administration recently announced that they are going to take action to end DACA– the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. It was originally established during the Obama administration with the objective of protecting immigrants, who are children, from being deported.

President Barack Obama shows the Resolute Desk to young immigrants while giving them an Oval Office tour. The President met with the group of Dreamers, who talked about how they have benefited from Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Feb. 4, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

DACA has progressively helped 800,000 infants, children, and young adults, allowing them to live, seek education, and work in America. Currently, 690,000 are enrolled in the program– all facing the prospect of deportation.

The public often depicts undocumented immigrants with hostility and disconnect from the lives of Americans– causing segregation and certain prejudices to fabricate. The stories that Dreamers, such as Raymond Partolan, have, are crucial in bridging the divide between society and their dehumanization of immigrants due to the media.

Partolan, a Dreamer that DACA has helped, has a story that is privy to many and shocks the biases formed around immigration. Partolan came to America, from the Philippines, when he was 1. His parents were surviving on a legal work visa, albeit his father was later denied from receiving a green card, leaving a consistent fear and anxiety, within Partolan, of deportation due to their status of being undocumented immigrants.

                      Raymond Partolan

The stigma of being undocumented was so immense that Partolan attempted to take his own life. Even with the safety that DACA provided for him, he felt alienated from the only home he has ever known– America.

When the idea that the undocumented are malicious with their intents of coming to America, the country of the free and dreaming becomes manipulated into a place of hostility and intolerance.

Dating back to the colonial times, America is built on the foundation of immigration and liberation. By attempting to repeal DACA, the future of America is bleak, further establishing this ideology that the undocumented are not worthy of pursuing the same dream that everyone in America originated with: a better life.