US President Donald Trump is scrapping a program set up by President Barack Obama in 2012, known as the DACA - Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. This program currently grants work permit to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children and are also known as ‘Dreamers’.
US President Donald Trump is scrapping a program set up by President Barack Obama in 2012, known as the DACA - Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. This program currently grants work permit to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children and are also known as ‘Dreamers’.
This move is most likely to impact 800,000 undocumented workers, including more than 7,000 Indian- Americans. The announcement by the Trump administration, which was anticipated for the past few days, was greeted with protests from across the country.
Tech companies see immigrants as important members of American workforce and have taken a vow to help Dreamers and oppose an end to the DACA as well. CNET stated that Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Uber CTO Thuan Pham and Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky and more than 300 others have signed a group letter to Trump, as well as leaders in the House of Representatives and the Senate, urging them to protect DACA. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared a post on the social network and Dreamers the "future of our country and our economy."
Now, India ranks 11th among countries of origin for DACA students, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services statistics available till March 31, 2017. The number of people from India, who arrived in the US illegally as children, could be more than 20,000, according to an estimate carried out by South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT). These people fear deportation after President Trump has decided to repeal the Obama-era amnesty programme.
"Over 27,000 Asian Americans, including 5,500 Indians and Pakistanis, have already received DACA. An additional estimated 17,000 individuals from India and 6,000 from Pakistan respectively are eligible for DACA, placing India in the top ten countries for DACA eligibility," SAALT said.
In a statement, South Asian Bar Association (SABA) president Rishi Bagga said "DREAMERS" were brought to the US by their parents in hopes of a better life.
SABA said when the DACA program ends; the 800,000-plus registrants who relied upon the federal government's representations by coming out of the shadows and willingly shared their information with the federal government will be in danger of deportation.
US president Barack Obama has also decried his successor Donald Trump's decision to end an amnesty for 800,000 people brought to America illegally as children, calling it "wrong," "self-defeating" and "cruel."
With inputs from Agencies
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