Two weeks after the Trump administration announced the termination of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program created by President Obama, editorial boards across the country continue to criticize the decision to rip away protections from the nearly 800,000 DREAMers who were brought to this country as children. DREAMers contribute to our nation’s economy on a daily basis and rescinding DACA would force hundreds of thousands back into the shadows and tear them away from their families and communities.

Ending DACA could cause a loss of up to $460.3 billion from our nation’s GDP over the next decade. It is time for Republicans to support the bipartisan DREAM Act that would give these young immigrants the opportunity they deserve to stay in the only country they call home.

See coverage below:

NEW Rapid City Journal: Ours: Congress needs to preserve DACA program

“South Dakota’s Republican lawmakers — Sens. Thune and Rounds and Rep. Noem — have not yet taken a public stand on the issue even though approximately 500 state residents are Dreamers, which is disappointing but not unexpected.

[…]

“However, this shouldn't be a debate only about immigration policy. The Dreamers are real people with families here who deserve better from the place we like to call the greatest country in the world. Congress needs to put people ahead of politics this time.”

NEW Lansing State Journal: Editorial: Dreamers deserve to feel safe, legislators must act to provide protection

“Legislators across the nation must work swiftly to decisively reform immigration policy and protect this group of young people. Remember, DACA recipients had to be younger than 16 when they came to the U.S. and must have lived here since 2007. They were children when they arrived. Now these Dreamers are our friends, neighbors and co-workers. In every aspect except citizenship, they are Americans. It is time to help these young people realize their American Dream. It's up to you, Congress. Get it done.”

NEW Minnesota Daily: Editorial: Protect DACA beneficiaries

“Most DACA recipients have spent the majority of their lives in this country and were given the promise of security when registering for the program. The next six-month period will become an uncertain time for the status of these individuals. We urge lawmakers to pass a bill, permanently implementing DACA or a similar program. If this fails to happen, we hope Trump reviews the program, as is his intention, and decides against rescission.”

NEW Ashland Daily Tidings: Editorial: DACA needs a solution

“Southern Oregon University President Linda Schott’s announcement that the university would not cooperate with attempts to deport students enrolled in the DACA program unless legally compelled to do so aligns with the views of most Americans. The gesture is largely symbolic — like it or not, the law is on the side of federal immigration authorities if they choose to impose it — but it is important to those young people who now live in fear of being banished from the only country they have ever known.”

NEW The Topeka Capital–Journal: Editorial: We’re grateful to Washburn, KU for helping with DACA renewals

“While Trump uses the Dreamers — including around 6,000 DACA recipients who are living in Kansas — as political leverage to pursue ‘massive border security,’ they only have until Oct. 5 to apply for renewal. This is why the University of Kansas and Washburn law schools are providing free legal assistance on DACA applications between now and the end of September. Considering the extremely narrow timeframe and severe consequences of failing to submit an application by the deadline, these services are vital.”

NEW Sacramento Bee: California officials make clear: The state has Dreamers’ backs

“DACA was the moral solution for children who have never known a home other than the United States, but who were brought here without documentation by their parents. It’s also popular with voters, who see the good sense in encouraging these young ‘Dreamers’ who, in many cases, are among the nation’s best and brightest. Their deportation would run counter to American principles.”

NEW The Buffalo News: Editorial: DACA decision shows a lack of compassion

“With Trump dumping this matter into Congress’ lap, members need to act quickly to protect these innocents. It’s the right thing to do – and the American thing to do. As such, it should be passed as stand-alone legislation: a ringing declaration of humanity untethered to other matters.”

NEW Daily Herald: Editorial: Congress should save DACA program

“For the sake of compassion and practicality, Congress should back DACA before Trump’s self-imposed deadline. It should be a first step of many toward addressing the sticky issue of immigration in the United States and ending the limbo that millions of people find themselves in.”

NEW Orange County Register: Editorial: Should DACA policy on young immigrants be saved?

“For all intents and purposes, these immigrants are as American as native-born Americans, with many having no memory of or any meaningful connection to the country in which they were born. To punish young people for having been brought to the United States as children by their parents, beyond their control, would be an unconscionable disregard of people who have done nothing wrong.”

USA Today: Editorial: Trump's DACA reversal won't only hurt dreamers

“Trump apparently believes that he can use the dreamers as bargaining chips to force Congress to fund a border wall or other priorities. That is folly. Too many Republicans, particularly in the House, are hardened in their opposition to DACA. And too few Democrats are willing to cooperate with Trump. 

In six months, then, the president is likely to find himself right where he is today. He could inflict real damage on himself, his party and his country by letting the deportations go into effect. He could institute another delay. Or he could try to negotiate some face-saving deal with Democrats and Republican pragmatists to pass a DACA law.”

The New York Times: Editorial: Donald Trump’s Cowardice on ‘Dreamers’

“In short, DACA is morally right, legally sound and fiscally smart policy. It was also the only humane choice Mr. Obama had in the face of Congress’s failure to pass any meaningful immigration reform in the last two decades.

If all that weren’t enough, DACA remains overwhelmingly popular among Americans of all political stripes. Polls put its approval rating at roughly double that of President Trump himself. Even the Chamber of Commerce, usually a reliable backer of the Republican legislative agenda, called the decision to end DACA ‘contrary to fundamental American principles.’”

The Washington Post: Editorial: Trump’s heartless decision

“The president didn’t have the spine to announce his decision himself. He shuffled it to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, an anti-immigration extremist who seemed to relish sticking a knife in DACA. Mr. Trump told reporters Tuesday that he hoped “Congress will be able to help” the dreamers “and do it properly.” But his written statement — “young Americans have dreams too” — was a study in ambiguity. While saying the dreamers wouldn’t be first in line for deportation, Mr. Trump put them on a path to lose jobs, educational opportunities, and the ability to lead open and unafraid lives.

[…]

Tossing red meat to the administration’s hardcore nativist base, Mr. Sessions falsely asserted that DACA amounts to unconstitutional ‘amnesty.’ In fact, DACA is a stopgap that conferred no legal status on its recipients. And despite the administration’s contention that it is legally indefensible, predicting how the Supreme Court would rule on it is a guessing game. Presidents have long exercised broad discretion over the enforcement of immigration law and deportations — a matter of necessity given finite resources.”

The Washington Post: Editorial: Trump’s messy and muddled reasoning on DACA

“Hours after Mr. Sessions’s announcement, Mr. Trump tweeted that he would ‘revisit’ DACA if Congress were unable to ‘legalize’ the policy by March. It is unclear just what the president intends with this pledge. If he plans to reinstate or extend DACA, on what basis will he do so, given his own attorney general’s determination that he lacks the necessary legal authority?”

La Opinión: Editorial: Una decisión cruel y cobarde

“Esta es la culminación de una farsa diseñada por el sector antiinmigrante Republicano para forzar la mano de un Presidente que estaba reticente a cumplir la promesa electoral de deportar a estos beneficiarios.

[…]

“Es una broma de mal gusto que Trump esconda su responsabilidad detrás del Congreso más inoperante en décadas. Que le pida que resuelva en seis meses una acción de inmigración que se negó a hacerlo por años.

Es más, el antecedente legislativo de votos en la Cámara Baja en contra de los “soñadores”, los beneficiarios de DACA, hace que la decisión equivalga a enviar las ovejas a los lobos para que las ayuden.”

Los Angeles Times: Editorial: Ending DACA was an act of pure cruelty by Trump

“The president apparently lacked the courage himself to stand before the cameras and publicly dash the dreams of hundreds of thousands of people, so Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions made the announcement in a speech that was low in details and high in praise of his boss.

[…]

“There is a fix for this. Congress can and should resurrect the DREAM Act and make it national policy to offer these people a path to legalization. Under the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (just as under DACA), participants can’t have had a serious criminal past and must be in school, or have graduated or serve in the military. They can’t pose a threat to public safety or national security. American society and institutions have molded these young men and women; many of them already are productive members of society.”

Los Angeles Times: Editorial Here's a solution to the DACA crisis: Pass a Dream Act. And soon

“The best solution, of course, would be for Congress to pass protections for Dreamers as part of a comprehensive immigration reform package that also addresses border security, reasonable immigration quotas and a path to legalization for the bulk of the 11 million immigrants living in the country without documentation. But partisanship and polarization make such broad but badly needed reforms unlikely at the moment.”

The Mercury News: Editorial: Is Congress up to the job of reviving DACA and protecting Dreamers?

“President Donald Trump issued DACA’s death sentence Monday — but he left room for a reprieve: He gave Congress six months to “do their job” and pass a law protecting these young people, whom, he proclaimed, ‘we love.’

[…]

“Trump’s victory was based at least in part on a pledge of mass deportation, including the DACA recipients. But some Republicans — and Trump himself — since have become queasy about targeting young people who are here through no fault of their own.

“Traditional Republicans also may be moved by the massive outpouring by American businesses on behalf of the Dreamers.”

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Editorial: In rescinding DACA, Trump builds a wall of fear — and makes young people pay for it

“By any measure, the program, known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, has been a success. Of the roughly 800,000 individuals who have taken advantage of DACA, an estimated 65 percent are in college and more than 90 percent are gainfully employed, many with Fortune 500 companies.

But President Donald Trump has cast these individuals back behind a wall of fear and uncertainty with his decision, announced Tuesday by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a DACA opponent, to rescind the program after a six-month delay.”

Santa Cruz Sentinel: Editorial:  Post Trump DACA cruelty, Congress must pass Dream Act

“What they should do, however, is coalesce around the bipartisan 2017 Dream Act, which helps DACA kids, follow a strict series of rules that could lead to citizenship after 13 years.

The problem is that although polls show a hefty majority of Americans support DACA, individual members, especially conservative Republicans, know this issue is a loser in their districts — and that Trump was elected partly on his appeal to anti-immigrant xenophobia.”

Austin American-Statesman: Editorial: Congress should stand by Dreamers, grant them legal status

“An economic analysis by the institute found that without DACA recipient contributions, the U.S. gross domestic product would lose $433.4 billion over the next 10 years. The Texas economy would lose $6.1 billion if 100,000 DACA recipients were no longer in the local workforce, according to the analysis.

Dreamers are American in every way except birthright. The U.S. is their home. On average, DACA recipients arrived in the U.S. at the age of 6, according to political science professor Tom K. Wong at the University of California San Diego.”

The Dallas Morning News: The Trump administration is ending DACA. It is time for Congress to act.

“This is where Congress, particularly Ryan and McConnell as the institution's leaders, have a challenge. Trump has given Congress a six-month window to come up with a replacement program. While it's difficult to have faith Trump will sign any legislation having to do with immigration rights, he has indicated through tweets and public statements he would be open to doing so. 

There are nearly 800,000 people who have received work permits and deportation relief under DACA, and 270,000 people living in Texas are eligible for DACA protection, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Trump's order on Tuesday thrusts these people — all of them law-abiding workers or students — into limbo with no idea what will happen to them.”

El Paso Times: Editorials: Ending DACA is indefensible and immoral

“More importantly, ending DACA is a betrayal of the 750,000 people who stepped forward to identify their status to the federal government. They did so in hopes of bettering their lives and contributing to their communities. Now, the government is armed with information that it can use to deport them.

A mass deportation of these young people, which becomes possible if not likely with the end of DACA, would simply be immoral.”

My San Antonio: Dreamers’ dreams cruelly dashed by Trump

“President Trump tried to distance himself from this decision, letting Attorney General Jeff Sessions, an immigration hardliner, do the heavy lifting in announcing it. But it comes on the heels of his pardon for Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who made his reputation targeting immigrants and Latinos. Got it? Children brought here by their parents and are now contributing to our society might get deported, but the sheriff who illegally targeted and detained Latinos received a pardon.

Trump owns this.”

Chicago Sun-Times: Editorial: Tell it to Alonso Guillen that Dreamers have no place here

“What a cowardly abdication of responsibility by the Trump administration. Congress is far more likely to replace DACA with a humane alternative if Trump takes the lead, and the president said later on Tuesday that he does not ‘favor punishing children’ for ‘the actions of their parents.’ Yet he has punted to Congress.”

The Post Star: Editorial: Congress needs to craft fair plan for dreamers

“We hope Congress returns to the original promise of the legislation in 2001 — supported by many in both parties — that would allow young people and current students who lived most of their lives in the United States to remain and contribute to our society.”

Times Union: A cruel decision on DACA

“It's hard to take Mr. Sessions' legalistic reasoning seriously when he asserts that somehow DACA, which is open only to those who came here before 2007, had something to do with a flood of children displaced by hunger and violence coming illegally across the border from Central America in recent years. Or when he says that the Justice Department “does not represent any narrow interest or any subset of the American people,” when in reality this administration has been governing from the beginning without the support of a majority of voters, and is steadily losing support as it pursues a hateful agenda.”

Tampa Bay Times:  Editorial: Killing DACA shows a lack of compassion and common sense

“In Florida, the loss of DACA protection means more than 30,000 workers could soon lose their jobs. The turnover expense for employers would be huge, and the loss of tax revenues would cost Florida nearly $6 billion in the next decade, according to a study done by the libertarian Cato Institute. Multiply those numbers nationwide, and you get even bigger losses to Medicare and Social Security because Dreamers with jobs are paying into those entitlements.”

Miami Herald: Congress should negotiate to rescue DREAMers

“Sessions, playing fast and loose with the facts, said that DACA was a ‘unilateral executive amnesty.’

It was anything but. In 2012 the Editorial Board said: ‘The change in policy does not even amount to an executive order, and it stops far short of providing a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants brought to this country as minors by their parents. It doesn’t offer the coveted ‘green card’ or federal financial aid for education, but rather provides an avenue of redress. … ‘

Sessions also said that DACA ‘contributed to a wave of unaccompanied minors on the southern border that produced terrible humanitarian consequences.’

What he conveniently didn’t say is that those unaccompanied minors at the Mexican border — mostly from Central America — were not lured to the United States by DACA. Rather, their parents wanted to protect them from drugs and gang violence.”

Orlando Sentinel: Editorial: Don't let the dream die for 800,000 young immigrants

“Failing to revive DACA wouldn’t just deliver a cruel blow to these immigrants, who are Americans in all but their paperwork. Terminating their work permits would cost the U.S. economy $460 billion over the next decade, according to FWD.us, an immigration advocacy organization founded by technology industry leaders. In Florida alone, home to an estimated 33,000 Dreamers, the hit to the economy would amount to $1.5 billion a year.”

Sun Sentinel: Editorial: President Trump rolls dice on 800,000 lives

“The president’s action gives Congress until March 2018 to come up with a legislative solution, but it was Congress’s inability to forge a solution that prompted President Obama to use his executive powers to create DACA in 2012.

[…]

“Despite the controversy, it’s hard to deny the policy has been a success. Many recipients have become teachers, nurses, medical and law students, or pursued other careers and professions. They have purchased their first cars and homes. Some have started businesses, while others have joined the military. They’re paying taxes and contributing to the economy. The conservative Cato Institute estimates a $280 billion reduction in economic growth over the next decade if these young people are deported. The libertarian think tank says it would cost taxpayers $60 billion to deport so many people.”

Herald Tribune: Editorial: DACA participants deserve to stay

“The best chance of protecting these productive, law-abiding immigrants is for Congress to approve focused, bipartisan legislation in the form of the Dream Act, sponsored by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. The bill is similar to DACA but includes a pathway, not a guarantee, to citizenship.

The Dream Act is a preferable, humane alternative to deportation. Pass it soon.”

El Nuevo Herald: Editorial: Una solución tras el fin de DACA

“A Sessions se le olvidó mencionar que la verdadera razón de la llegada de miles de menores no acompañados –la mayoría procedentes de Centroamérica– por la frontera con México no fue la promulgación de DACA, sino la crisis de criminalidad, drogas y violencia pandillera en Honduras, Guatemala y El Salvador.

Muchos de los casi 800,000 beneficiarios de DACA vinieron a Estados Unidos mucho antes de que el presidente Obama implementara su orden ejecutiva.

[…]

“El Congreso tiene seis meses para encontrar una alternativa al suspendido programa DACA. Debe buscar cuanto antes una solución justa y humanitaria, que salve de la posible deportación a jóvenes que merecen un futuro mejor que la incertidumbre y el temor y cuyo país, en realidad, es este”

Arizona Republic: Our View: Trump failed dreamers. Will Congress clean up his mess?

“The White House is aggressively pursuing a course of white-identity politics that is dividing the nation in ways truly ominous. Without a change of course, the tensions in the country could turn to more spasms of violence on the American street.

Congress has to do its job.

Congress has to reassure Americans it will urgently pursue new law that will protect the futures of the DACA 800,000.

To do otherwise is utterly indecent. The “Dream Kids” are our young people, whose every sensibility is American. They speak our language, they listen to our rock ‘n roll, they attend our public schools and eat our Big Macs.”

Tucson Star: Star Opinion: Trump wrong to punish 'dreamers'

“DACA is the opposite of an open-border policy. Dreamers are strivers who are pursuing an education, starting businesses, serving their country in the military. They are the people the architects of a smart immigration policy would work to attract.

Trump’s decision counters advice from leaders in educational institutions, business and industry leaders, local governments, economists and more.”

The Charlotte Observer: Only Congress can save innocent Dreamers now

“President Trump’s announcement Tuesday that he will rescind the program will have a very real impact on 800,000 innocent people, including some 28,000 in North Carolina.

No state may have more on the line than North Carolina as Trump erases America’s policy on so-called Dreamers. North Carolina had the nation’s highest application rate in the program’s first two years.”

Greensboro’s News & Record: Editorial: A DACA heartbreak

“‘We are a people of compassion and we are a people of law,’ the attorney general said. ‘But there is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws.’

He couldn’t be more wrong. President Barack Obama’s 2012 DACA order exercised ‘prosecutorial discretion’ to spare qualified young people from immigration enforcement for the best of reasons: That they should not be punished for the actions of their parents. Obama recognized that children raised in the U.S., who in many cases could not remember any other home, who learned English, blended into their communities and aspired to achieve the American Dream, belong here.”

Raleigh’s The News & Observer: Editorial More Trump pandering on DACA phase-out

“For Trump to phase out the “Dreamers” program is nothing more than a play to the right-wing, xenophobic base that helped bring him to office. Polls have shown the Dreamers program is popular, so it’s not as if Trump’s following the “will of the people” or anything like that. This is same-old, same-old for the Trump White House, a disjointed, confusing (and confused) place where even some staff members seem bewildered by Trump’s actions.

Trump’s popularity, the lowest on record in polls even in the run-up to his inauguration, has dived of late, but the president seems to be a man tilting at ideological windmills, bouncing from one thing to another.”

The Detroit Free Press: Editorial: With DACA ending, it's up to Congress to rescue dreamers

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions' insistence that the decision to scuttle DACA was compelled by the administration's deference to the rule of law might seem less flagrantly phony if his boss had not gone out of his way to excuse former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio's own lawless purge less than a fortnight earlier. 

Viewed in the shadow of that travesty, the president's latest directive seems more like a cynical ploy to placate the same base he sought to arouse with his proposals to ban Muslim immigrants, halve legal immigration and bar transgender Americans from military service. The decimation of DACA is just another xenophobic initiative from a White House that loves to celebrate the American dream even as it kicks the ladders from beneath those who aspire to it.”

The Hartford Courant: Editorial 5 Reasons Trump Is Wrong On DACA

“Even his fellow Republican leaders believe President Donald J. Trump is making a serious mistake in ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in six months. Here are five reasons why the president should back off this cruel decision affecting 800,000 young people who grew up in the U.S.”

The Baltimore Sun: Editorial: Trump and DACA: Dreamers deferred

“President Trump could have avoided this political morass by doing what President Obama did five years ago in erring on the side of protecting a class of people who did nothing wrong and recognizing that their potential contributions to our society are just as great as those of young people who were born here. If the president were really sincere in his sympathy for the dreamers, he could have proposed legislation to protect them rather than just tweeting at Congress. But by trotting out Mr. Sessions to proclaim that ending DACA actually ‘prevents human suffering,’ the president made clear where his sympathies lie.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Editorial: What must be done to save the 'Dreamers' from Trump politics

“Republicans who suggest that President Trump had no choice but to stop protecting from deportation immigrants illegally brought into this country as children are trying to cover their backsides for a despicable act that could have been avoided.

[…]

“Politics is the only reason Trump went after the Dreamers. Letting DACA live would have put him at odds with a part of his base that he does not want to offend. Don’t count on him to lead the effort to pass legislation that again protects the Dreamers.”

Virginia Pilot: Editorial: Executive actions are no way to run a country

“On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced its latest rejection of an executive action by President Barack Obama — one that protected a group of young adults known as ‘dreamers’ from being deported as long as they are attending school or working in the United States. About 800,000 ‘dreamers’ nationwide, including about 12,000 in Virginia, are part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

[…]

“Congress should reassert its authority by acting soon to create a better approach to immigration, one that establishes clear guidelines to protect the ‘dreamers’ and allows them to remain in the United States.

“If it fails to act, Congress will not only destroy a good program that’s working for 800,000 participants and the country, it will give Trump and future presidents even greater incentive to bypass lawmakers and create their own temporary policies out of the White House.”

Star Ledger: Editorial: Trump revokes DACA, and now a spineless Congress must respond

“But DACA is mostly a moral debate. It is about people who arrived here as children, who pledge allegiance to no other flag. They have become our soldiers, cops, teachers, business owners, taxpayers, and – in the case of a hero named Alonso Guillen – first responders who lost their lives in Houston.

Florence's Times Daily: Trump rides fence on young immigrants

“Not only is Trump forcing Sessions to be the fall guy for a decision that horrifies DACA residents, their employers, colleges and friends, but he is setting up Congress to be the bad guy. In theory, the same Congress that can’t pass a bill on health care and that already is split on tax reform could resurrect some form of DACA through legislation. The six-month grace period before Obama’s executive order expires is being sold by Trump as an opportunity for Congress to pass humane legislation.”

The Denver Post: Editorial: On Trump’s DACA decision, there’s plenty of blame to go around

“A real leader would have found a way to stall until replacement legislation was in place, ensuring the futures of these temporary residents weren’t destroyed by his action. Instead, he issued a letter: ‘As I’ve said before, we will resolve the DACA issue with heart and compassion — but through the lawful Democratic process — while at the same time ensuring that any immigration reform we adopt provides enduring benefits for the American citizens we were elected to serve.’”

News Times: Congress must act to save Dreamers

“Trump’s heartless decision smacks of politics. Not only is he pandering to his anti-immigration base, but also by pushing the issue to Congress he can use it as a wedge to muster support for his unrealistic wall along the border of Mexico. The ploy is shameful.

The president’s reasons and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ justifications for ending the policy are faulty. Sessions said, and Trump echoed, that DACA took jobs from ‘hundreds of thousands’ of Americans, while putting the nation at risk ‘of crime, violence and terrorism.’ Economic studies are to the contrary. It was a ‘lawless policy’ invoked by Obama, Sessions said, but actually it was within presidential power.”

Seattle Times: Editorials: Let DACA deadline kick-start overdue immigration reform

“The harsh, divisive rhetoric of Trump and U.S. attorney general Jeff Sessions regarding immigration is repellent, but the challenge is now before Congress to shake off its dysfunction and finally act on immigration reform. It must not fail.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program has helped 800,000 young people avoid deportation, work legally in the United States and continue their education. Many already have made significant contributions as leaders, doctors, writers, soldiers and scientist”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Editorial: With DACA ending, Congress needs to do its job

“We think ending the DACA program is a mistake. The Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy coffered security for children who had been brought into this country through no decision of their own. Leaving them hanging by announcing an end before a new system is in place is cruel.”