‘City
of
Roses’
Volume XLVI • Number 36
Honoring
Gladys Waters
Gospel Music
Showcase
Albina Head Start
names building for
late mentor
Highland to host
awards show
concert
s ee l ocal n ews , Page 3
s ee story , Page 7
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • September 6, 2017
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
A recent rally in favor of immigration reform at the White House in Washington, D.C. brings out Michael Claros, 8, of Silver Spring, Md., whose parents would have been
eligible for DAPA, or Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, an Obama era policy memo that the Trump administration has since formally revoked. (AP Photo)
Dreamers Abandoned
Trump ends program
to furious opposition
by M ichael l eighton
P ortland o bserver e ditor
A wide range of civil rights groups
condemned the Trump Administration
Tuesday for ending the 2012 program
that has deferred deportations for more
than 780,000 people who came to the
U.S. illegally as children.
Opposition to the move was furi-
ous after Trump officials announced
they will rescind the Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) pro-
gram and phase it out over the next
six months, leaving the fate of the so-
called Dreamers impacted by the pro-
gram in the hands of Congress. The
decision could impact 11,000 children
in Oregon.
“Today, President Trump made one
of the cruelest and most racially-mo-
tivated decisions in modern American
history,” said Derrick Johnson, national
interim president of the NAACP. “The
current administration has abdicated
any moral authority associated with
the United States in favor of policies
designed to promote white supremacy,
shrink our democracy and divide our
nation. It’s simply un-American.”
David Rogers, executive direc-
tor of the American Civil Liberties
Union of Oregon, said Trump and
the forces that helped to end DACA,
“threw the lives and future of Dream-
er families into disarray, and injected
chaos and uncertainly into thousands
of workplaces and communities
across America.”
Rogers said the DACA program
served as a critical lifeline for young
immigrants who came to America as
children and have known the United
States as their only home. He said the
Oregon ACLU will continue to fight on
behalf of their futures.
Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive
director of the Lawyers’ Committee
for Civil Rights and Economic Justice,
said deporting dreamers would send
them back to countries which they
have little or no connection and sub-
ject them in many cases to the intense
violence or poverty present in some of
those countries.”
“This latest Trump threat only fur-
ther divides our country and creates
fear in our communities,” said Jason
Leon, chair of the Latino Caucus of the
Democratic Party of Oregon.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called
Trump’s decision an effort to punish
thousands of innocent young Americans
c ontinued on P age 6