#save daca

my local SDS chapter drove down to Columbia today (02/25/18) to support our friends at the rally for Dreamers 💕✊❤️🖤

...And that thought is overwhelmingly terrifying.

I have been living in the U.S. for over 13 years. I have been here since i was 8-9 years old. I've grown up here.

I had my schooling here. I had my esl classes here. I had my first kiss here. I learn to drive here. Learned to play the alto-sax and trumpet here. Learned to draw, and paint, and dance, and how to be creative. I found my love for shity video games, comics, and dumb b-movies here. I even picked up fishing just last year. Caught my first striper right of the naugatuck river. My entire adult identity was shaped in this country. I refuse to leave.

I joined the DACA program over four years ago. Four years of hard work. Four years of paying taxes and lawyers thousands of dollars to stay in this country. Avoiding any kind of criminal activity in fear of them revoking my social security number and work permit. This summer alone we paid two thousand dollars to our lawyer and immigration to renew our permits.

I remember when the program was first announced so many immigrants i know refused to join because it sounded like a trap. We would be on a list somewhere with all our info for the government to see. Our names and addresses at the ready to track us and deport us at a moments notice. But me, my family, and over 800,000 people joined for a chance to work legally, own homes, and earn driver's licenses. Now we could lose it all and prove those fears were right.

It's not a grey moral dilemma. We're not just here to steal jobs or be criminals, you can't even join the program if you have a criminal record. The parents of me and other dreamers escaped dictators, street gangs, abject poverty, and inhumane conditions all across the board. For many it was either leave or die with your kids. Entering illegaly was a measured of survival for many not just to build a better life. If that's the only and best choice then we have to take it.

Now our dreams could end soon because a real life version of the movie Duck Soup is currently taking stage in our country.