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WEBVTT WHEN ANGELA VELASQUEZ APPLIEDFOR THE DACA PROGRAM TO BECOME ASTUDENT AT SACRAMENTO STATE.SHE ADMITTED TO THE FEDERALrtGOVERNMENT THAT SHE WASUNDOCUMENTED.>> WE TRUSTED THAT OURINFORMATION WOULD BE SAFE.AND THAT IT WOULDN'T BE USEDAGAINST US.AND NOW THAT WE'VE COME rtOUT OFTHE SHADOWS IT'S TIME TO BEAFRAID AGAIN BECAUSE THEY HAVEALL OF OUR INFORMATION NOW.MIKE:rt BUT WILL THE TRUMPADMINISTATION USE THATINFORMATION TO DEPORT DREAMERSLIKE ANGELA VELAZQUEZ AFTERANNOUNCING PLANS TODAY TOELIMINATE THE DACA PROGRAM?>> IN ORDER TO GET DACA STATUS,rtTHEY HAD TO GIVE THE GOVERNMENTA LOT OF PERSONAL INFORMATION.SO THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS WHERETHEY ARE AND HOW TO GET THEM.MIKE:rt BRIAN LANDSBERG IS ACONSTITUTIONAL LAW EXPERT,ANDPROFESSOR AT THE MCGEORGE SCHOOLOF LAW HE TOLD US TODAY THERECOULD BE BIG LEGAL CHALLENGES IFTHE TRUMP ADMINISTATION STARTSTARGETrtING DACA RECIPIENTS.>> IF THE GOVERNMENT WERE TO USETHAT INFORMATION AGAINST DACAPEOPLE, I THINK THAT WOULD RAISErtANOTHER CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONABOUT THEIR DUE PROCESS RIGHTS.MIKE: THE DACA DILEMMA IS FRONTAND CENTER AT THE IMMIGRATIONLAW CLINIC, RUN BY MCGEORGE.rtSTUDENT ADVISORS HERE HAVEHELPED SOME 300 PEOPLE GET INTOTHE DACA PROGRAM.>> WE ARE HEARING FROM PEOPLEAND THERE'S A LOT OF ANGER.THERE'S A LOT rtOF SADNESS AND NOTKNOWING WHAT TO DO.MIKE: DACA BEGAN FIVE YEARS AGOUNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA'SEXECUTIVE ORDER.CONGRESS NEVER APPROVED THE DACArtPROGRAM AND UNDER THECONSTITUTION, PRESIDENTS ARESUPPOSED TO FAITHFULLY EXECUTEIMMIGRATION LAWS.>> AND SO THAT'S THE PRESIDENT'SARGUMENT THArtT HE WAS SIMPLYIMPLEMENTING A STATUTE THAT GAVEHIM THE AUTHORITY TO DO SO.MIKE: BUT NOW THAT THE TRUMPADMINISTRATION IS OVERRIDINGTHAT POLICY.IT'S rtUP TO CONGRESS TO SAVE,ALTER OR ELIMINATE THE DACAPROGRAM.

Advertisement California DACA recipient denounces President Trump's decision Angela Velazquez: 'We were promised a future' Share Shares Copy Link Copy

The Trump administration's decision to eliminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provided protection from deportation to certain undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children, raises some key questions.Congress has six months to act before the DACA policy is rescinded.Whether or not there will be deportations is a big issue on college campuses, where many DACA recipients are enrolled in school. Sacramento State University is home to an estimated 1,000 undocumented students, many of whom are enrolled in the DACA program. Angela Velazquez is hoping to re-enroll at Sac State to study government. She was stunned by Tuesday's decision.“I'm very disappointed. We were promised a future. We were promised hope. And now they want to take it away,” Velazquez said.Velazquez said her DACA papers have expired, so she’s living in Sacramento as an undocumented immigrant, while applying for permanent residency in a country she’s lived in since childhood. “I think that I'm an American,” Velazquez said. “I grew up here. I've been a Sacramento resident since the age of 5. And this is the only home I know. And I don't want my home to be taken away from me,” she said.DACA was an administrative program created with an executive order by President Barack Obama in 2012. But only Congress can set immigration policy.KCRA 3 asked University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law professor Leslie Jacobs if President Obama overstepped his authority with the DACA program.“It's been subject to court challenges but we don't have a definitive decision,” she said.Brian Landsberg, another law professor at McGeorge, told KCRA 3, “In a parallel program involving the parents of these Dreamers, the Supreme Court divided 4 to 4 on whether the president had the authority to order that program.”Under the constitution, presidents are supposed to faithfully execute the immigration laws written by Congress. “And so that's the president's argument,” Jacobs said. "(Obama’s premise was) that he was simply implementing a statute that gave him the authority to do so."Jacobs said there is some wiggle room when it comes to immigration law. Jacobs indicated that President Obama likely did have the authority to initiate DACA, but also that President Trump has the authority to eliminate it.Now it’s up to Congress to decide the fate of Angela Velazquez and tens of thousands of others just like her. “It seems like we're having our future just ripped away from us right now,” Velazquez said.When Velazquez applied for the DACA program, she was admitting to the federal government that she was undocumented. “We trusted that our information would be safe,” she said. “And that it wouldn't be used against us. And now that we've come out of the shadows, it's time to be afraid again because they have all of our information now.”But will the Trump Administration use that information to deport DACA recipients like Velazquez? “In order to get DACA status, they had to give the government a lot of personal information,” Landsberg noted. “So the government knows where they are and how to get them ... If the government were to use that information against DACA people, I think that would raise another constitutional question about their due process rights."The DACA dilemma is front and center at the Immigration Law Clinic, run by the McGeorge School of Law. Student advisers there have helped some 300 people get into the DACA program. “We are hearing from people and there's a lot of anger,” said Blake Nordahl, supervising attorney at the Immigration Law Clinic. “There's a lot of sadness and not knowing what to do.”