5,000 young TNTs face deportation after Trump order

WASHINGTON – About 5,000 young Filipinos along with 800,000 other undocumented immigrants face the prospect of deportation unless Congress legitimizes their stay in the United States following President Donald Trump’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday announced the ending of DACA, which allowed nearly 800,000 so-called “dreamers,” children brought into the country by their parents who then overstayed their visas, to be protected from immigration and get twoyear work permits.

Trump gave Congress six months to reach a deal to address the status of dreamers as part of immigration reform before recipients begin losing their status starting March 5, 2018.

DACA was created in 2012 through executive authority by former president Barack Obama after Congress failed to agree on a major immigration reform. Critics said the Obama move was a presidential overreach and unconstitutional.

The National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) said eliminating DACA protections “unjustly rips away the ladder of opportunity for hardworking people, divides families and pushes immigrant communities back into the shadows.”

The announcement to end DACA triggered demonstrations nationwide. Some demonstrators carried placards saying “no human is illegal.”

“DACA recipients are American in every sense of the way, except for their paperwork, and we should allow them to thrive and build lives here in the United States. Now is the time to take our fight to Capitol Hill, and NaFFAA renews its call for Congress to pass the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform that unites families, rather than divides them,” the group said in a statement.

Democratic US Sen. Ben Cardin, ranking member of the Senate foreign relations committee, said the Trump order will rip apart the lives of “dreamers” who for the most part have known no other home but the United States.

“Clearly written with little thought of the human consequences, this latest action by the Trump administration will harm our economic and national security. It will break families and drive many underground, out of work and into poverty,” he said in a statement.

In Manila, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said it would assist Filipinos who may end up getting deported as a result of Washington’s decision to revoke DACA.

“We will authorize with certain limitations the use of the Assistance to Nationals Fund and the Legal Assistance Fund to assist immigration-related cases such as those arising from the decision of President Trump to revoke the DACA,” said Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano.

“While we hope for the best in the form of a legislative solution, those affected should likewise prepare for the worst,” Cayetano said.

He said other possible legal options for the affected Filipinos should be explored.

“In any event, we are ready to welcome and assist our kababayans in whatever way we can if they are returned to the Philippines,” he added.

Chargé d’affaires Patrick Chuasoto of the Philippine embassy in Washington said that while DACA does not lead to US citizenship, it is renewable every two years.

Of the 3.4 million Filipinos in the US, the embassy said around 310,000 are undocumented.