There was a lot of enthusiasm this week as Donald Trump tweeted out a word to DACA recipients that he wasn’t changing anything for the next six months. They were totally safe until then. But that is just another lie.

The morning after the DACA announcement a mother of two DACA youth in our community went ot report at 970 Broad Street, as she has done for the past many years. For years her Stay of Removal has been granted for an additional year, based on the fact that her two DACA children (one now a Rutgers junior, the other a young parent with a spouse and baby) had some form of relief. This time, on September 6, when she reported, she was put into Elizabeth Detention Center and will surely be deported.

She didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to her Dreamers, didn’t get a chance to kiss that grandbaby, didn’t get a chance to pack up her things. She has been here for 20 years.

It had been the practice of the Newark Field Office to protect the sanctity of the families of DACA youth. That started to change after the January 25 executive order on the so-called “Security of the Interior.” We have had Dads deported who have DACA youth prior to this week. But for ICE to take a single mom in the way they took her on Wednesday felt like a major amping up of the pressure on the DACA community.

This is not about the dreams of 800,000 young people who came here as youth. It is about the dreams of those 800,000 and the families they are part of.

It is not enough to come up with a solution to protect DACA youth. We must go further. Nancy Pelosi should demand that the President cease his entire Enforcement and Removal Operations program from chasing down anyone who would be DACA eligible, or DAPA eligible. It is possible that the Congress could act swiftly, to come up with real reform. It would be an unforgivable sin to have thousands more families forced to be broken up during this six-month window of legislative opportunity.

Seth Kaper-Dale

Gubernatorial Candidate

Green Party

HIGHLAND PARK