Roberts: Crow standing tall for DACA students

While you were busy in the kitchen cooking turkey over the long weekend, ASU President Michael Crow was cooking up a potential firestorm.

He came to the defense of DREAMers. This, as Donald Trump promises to end a program that has allowed them to remain in the only country many of them have ever known.

Trump has promised to “immediately terminate” Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.  About 1.2 million DREAMers, including about 50,000 in Arizona, have been approved for DACA since Obama created the program in 2012.

Trump could wipe it out with a simple signature, making DACA recipients ineligible to work, drive or qualify for in-state tuition.

It is all the rage, given the ascendancy of Trump, to beat up on those who are here illegally.

Enter Crow, taking a stand for what is humane and what is sane and what is uniquely American. For what his likely to get his ears boxed by the powers that be -- and yet he did it anyway.

On Wednesday afternoon, Crow issued a strongly worded letter emphasizing ASU’s “unchanged” commitment to undocumented students, “based on the core principle set forth in ASU’s charter that we are ‘measured not by whom we exclude, but rather by whom we include and how they succeed.’”

“If DACA is eliminated, we will rise to the challenge,” he wrote. “ASU is a convening force in the community for good and for change.  If students lose the status that makes them eligible for in-state tuition, ASU will convene and engage the community on this issue to seek financial support for the continued study of students at ASU who graduated from Arizona high schools and who are qualified to attend the state universities -- regardless of their immigration status.”

This, of course, makes sense, if you set aside the Trump hysterics.

It makes sense to remove barriers to higher education for qualified students in a state where the average high school sees only 18.6 percent of its graduates earn a college degree within six years.

It makes sense if you believe that education creates opportunity and that we all benefit by having a better educated populace. If you believe that DACA students with degrees will qualify for better jobs which means they’ll pay more in taxes.

It makes sense in a country where we aren't going to deport DREAMers -- where we don't punish children for the sins of the fathers (or mothers).

Or at least, we shouldn’t.